If you want to be an actor, you go to New York or Los Angeles or Chicago. Notice that Maine isn’t on that list. Oh sure, actors come through the state for a gig here and there. But what if an actor wants to act and live in Maine?

Ah, there’s the rub.

Unless you’re Rebecca Cook. An actor by trade, Cook decided to add the hat of artistic director to her repertoire when she realized the limited opportunities for professional actors in eastern Maine. On Sunday at the municipal building in Bar Harbor, she pulls back the curtain on the new Bar Harbor Theatre, a small summer theater with big hopes for providing roles for experienced actors to practice their craft.

The inaugural season kicks off with a two-week run of “The Complete History of America (abridged),” an irreverent revision of the past by Adam Long, Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor. It continues July 15 with a second comedy, “All in the Timing,” a collection of one-act comedies by David Ives.

Reflected in Cook’s choice of plays is her sense that serious skill can be combined with hilarious scripts for outstanding theater. The programming will not always be as formidably funny, but it will strive to offer both actors and audiences solid and reliable theater experiences.

Cook, who will juggle the hats of founder, director and actor, sees her own role in the context of an actor-cum-theater manager tradition. As a model, she cited the late John Gielgud, who established his own theater to make work for both himself and other actors. The title she has given herself is “actor-manager.”

But she is unquestionably an actor at heart. It happens that she also has a gift for organization and a determination to make her summer-season project succeed – even if the working budget includes maxing her credit cards.

“She’s the one person you want at the nucleus of a creative project,” said Bob Shea, director of the Dana Humanities Center in Manchester, N.H. Over the years, he has directed Cook in roles at the New Hampshire Performing Arts Center. “She’s very, very conscientious. Acting is not just a job for her. It’s a vocation.”

Not coincidentally, Cook is looking to hire actors about whom she might make the same comment.

“Our actors are career actors,” said Cook, best remembered locally for her lead performance in the Penobscot Theatre’s production of “Pride’s Crossing.” “There are other actors in the area who are certainly serious about their work but most of the ones I am hiring work as actors for a living.”

The lineup primarily consists of members of Actors’ Equity Association, the professional actors’ union established nearly a century ago to protect the rights of theater employees. While membership in Equity is not always a measure of talent, it does indicate experience and commitment to a career in theater, and talent often underlies those qualities. Virtually all actors aspire to an Equity card.

“Equity actors have really worked to develop themselves to their fullest,” said Cook. “There’s a commitment, the training, the experience.”

There’s also Maine. While not every member of Cook’s five-person team hails from Maine, her goal is to employ as many Maine-born actors as possible. That hometown commitment can make all the difference in the world when it comes to vitality, said Shea.

“I worked outside my community for a long time,” said Shea, a native of New Hampshire. “When I came home, the vitality of my creative work took on a whole new life because I really cared. I was a product of that very community.”

If you asked Cook what she wanted to do when she was a teen in Old Town and even during her college years, she would have most likely answered: “Oh, I think I’ll have a summer theater in Maine.” Now she will tell you that she does have a theater in Maine.

“If you’re an actor, growing up in Maine is very painful because it’s your career versus your love of Maine,” she said. “I don’t want to give up Maine completely the way you have to when you have an acting career. I’m thinking of myself as an actor who is creating opportunities for other actors and for myself. Actors need to take back the world of theater. It really is about actors and audience. And I think it’s important to other Mainers, too.”

Such as Bernie Yvon. Yvon grew up in Old Town and performed with Cook in a third-grade production of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Since then, Yvon has gone on to a career in Chicago, but has also performed a featured role in the Broadway production of “Ragtime” and is currently in Tokyo with the touring production of “Cabaret.” The limited acting possibilities in Maine can be frustrating, said Yvon, who sees Cook’s new theater as a step toward filling a void.

“Rebecca has so many beautiful qualities, both as an actress and as a person,” said Yvon. “Everything she does is done with grace and intelligence and integrity. So I know that’s how her theater company will be run as well. I know she’s surrounding herself with great, talented people and of course I’d like to come home sometime soon and perform. It would be a dream come true really.”

Other directors in the area – Mark Torres at Penobscot Theatre in Bangor and Ken Stack at Acadia Repertory Theatre in Somesville – agree that a new theater on the block only bodes well for a community and for other theaters.

“A new theater means there’s excitement in the community for theater,” said Torres. “Rebecca’s saying that there’s space for more theater, and I agree. It says something about the maturation of arts in this region.”

“The more action in the arts, the more interest in the arts,” said Stack. “Interest breeds interest. I’m delighted Rebecca has started a new company.”

Bar Harbor Theatre will perform “The Complete History of America (abridged)” 8 p.m. July 1, 3, 5-8 and 11-14 at the Bar Harbor Municipal Building, 93 Cottage St. in Bar Harbor. For information, call 356-5987.