Remember when you turned 30? There was a sense of belonging. A sense of purpose. A sense of beauty. Hope for the future.

Even if that weren’t true for you, it is true for Somesville’s Acadia Repertory Theatre, which is celebrating 30 years of bringing live theater to vacationing audiences on Mount Desert Island. Founded in 1973 by George Vafiadis, who also created Penobscot Theatre in Bangor, and now under the artistic direction of Ken Stack, the theater is a traditional summer theater that features four seasonal shows, a mix of comedies, dramas, family works and a murder-mystery finale often highlighting works by Agatha Christie. The company also presents a children’s theater program during the day Wednesday and Saturday.

The lineup may seem formulaic. But Stack, who has been with the theater since its second season, says the company continues to reach toward new heights.

“It’s odd being around this long because you can be taken for granted,” said Stack. “After 30 years, you’re an institution. But we still have to work as hard to make it happen in our 30th season as we had to in our first. In fact, we have to work even harder because we have grown and want to keep raising the bar.”

Unlike some theater programmers who have opted for hard-core American themes this year, Stack has chosen plays that expose his own predilection for British literature. “The Woman in Black,” written by Stephen Malatratt and based on the novel by Susan Hill, is a ghost story about a London solicitor who hires an actor to coach him in telling a dramatic story from the past. “Pygmalion” is George Bernard Shaw’s classic tale of a highbrow professor who

learns lessons from a feisty flower girl on the street. “See How They Run,” by Philip King, is a rambunctious farce about old friends who meet under wild circumstances. The season will end with Agatha Christie’s whodunit “Ten Little Indians.”

The theater doesn’t do cutting-edge work, said Stack. It doesn’t do musicals. It doesn’t develop new works.

“We are storytellers,” he said. “And the process of telling stories is just as thrilling and invigorating as when I was 25 years old and starting out as an actor. It is the work itself that is the fountain of youth. Everyone says that but within theater it is particularly true because you are working with groups of creative people. You put energy in and you get it back tenfold. The audiences’ input increases it even more.”

Stack also is hoping to increase the seasonal and year-round possibilities for the performing arts with a $3 million campaign to preserve and restore the Criterion Theatre in Bar Harbor and create a major venue for arts and culture on Mount Desert Island.

“Where does the future take us? Where will we be in the next 30 years? We hope to be part of a larger performing arts organization that focuses all of the work of Mount Desert Island into a central facility,” said Stack.

But at 30, Stack’s Acadia Repertory Theatre is feeling at the top of its game.

“Theater is the same as real life,” said Stack. “You think that when you reach 30 you will have accomplished certain things. You look back and say there’s so much more we can do. Let’s do it. It’s not a depressing thing. It’s an opportunity.”

Acadia Repertory Theatre will present “The Woman in Black” by Stephen Malatratt, July 1-14; “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw, July 16-18; “See How They Run” by Philip King, July 30-Aug. 11; “Ten Little Indians” by Agatha Christie, Aug. 13-Sept. 1, at the Masonic Hall, Route 102, Somesville. “The Velveteen Rabbit” will be presented 10:30 a.m. Wednesday and Saturday July 6-Aug. 30. For information, call 244-7260.