Marie-Elena Baker’s adventures with the Bainbridge High School stage have taken her from Camelot to the Spanish Inquisition, from the new testament to the high seas, and introduced her to crazy characters aplenty including rock stars, aliens, pirates, murderers and heroes.

Through it all she stitched, sowed, patched and paired the costumes and many accessories for the student theater productions, the quest of a nearly three decade long career in arts education, which will see its own grand finale at 4 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10 with a retirement party in the Bainbridge High School Large Group Instruction room.

The school’s long-time library assistant and head costumer designer, Baker — a BHS class of 1967 alumna herself — began working for the district in 1988 and assumed the role of costumer in 1990. Since then, she has worked on nearly 50 plays and musicals (many in collaboration with renowned island theater figure Bob McAllister), in addition to the decade of experience she gained while working at Bainbridge Performing Arts. She would, she said, typically invest at least 700 hours in each production.

Baker’s presence within the program was essential just as much for her support and creativity as for her no-nonsense dedication.

“I think she raised the bar of the professionalism of what theater requires, the self-discipline particularly,” Barbara Hume, BHS drama teacher and former theater director, said. “It’s  a club, but yet it’s also about producing an actual theater performance together and that’s such a collective, collaborative experience.

“You have to respect the stage,” she added.

Respect, for the work, for the stage and for each other, was an attitude that “Ma Baker” — as the students affectionately came to refer to her — famously demanded of every cast member.

“I was backstage for every show, having to teach kids to respect the theater and the props,” Baker remembered. “You can’t have tomfoolery going on because that can just ruin the show. So I was kind of heavy disciplinarian backstage.”

It was role, she admitted, she loved to be hated for, and one for which the students always eventually expressed appreciation.

“Theater etiquette is the most important thing in the world, because so many people don’t [even] have it when they’re watching a play or when they’re backstage,” Baker said, admitting that as cell phones became more prevalent she would often go so far as to collect them prior to a show.

Her nickname, now an inseparable part of her legacy at BHS, came about honestly enough, she remembered.

“That started [in] about 1994, ’95,” she said. “Because my son was in theater, and all his best friends were in theater, so they’d just yell, ‘Hey, Ma! Hey, Ma!’ So I became Ma Baker and the name has stuck all these years.”

Whether teaching students the technical aspects of costume design, the stitching and sowing, or the research that must be done first and the legalities necessary to obtain the rights to a show, Baker was a critical piece of the BHS theater machine at every level, Hume said.

“She was a great dramaturge,” she said. “She had great things to give the kids in the library when they were looking for monologues for auditions, she always directed them to great resources.”She would do research online and send it to our Facebook group for the play, or for the musical,” she added. “To let kids check out the various resources online for getting more familiar with the story and the composers and the playwrights.”

Throughout her time, Baker said there were some shows that really stand out in her memory, including “Once On This Island,” “The Laramie Project,” “The Secret Garden” and “Kiss Me Kate.”It was her final show, last year’s “Return to the Forbidden Planet,” however, that she said was the most enjoyable of all.

“I probably had the most fun on that show ever because no one had ever done it before,” she said. “There were no expectations. I could do anything I wanted, and that’s what I did.”

Baker’s last day on staff was July 1, and she spent the summer, she said, settling into retirement.

“I don’t have to set my five alarms!” she laughed. “I’ve been doing a lot of sowing this summer for people and different things,” she said, adding that she intends to travel to Long Island and do some work with The Gateway Playhouse, and also to Wyoming to visit her grandchildren. Mostly, though, she said she plans to hang out on Bainbridge, relax for now and “putter about.”

“I’ll miss it, but I’ll share,” she said of the program. “It’s time for the new blood, the new people and that’s OK. I feel good about that.”

As to a legacy, Baker said she hopes that the kids “hear my echoing backstage.”

“There’s no small part, there’s only a small actor,” she said. “And that, in itself, is what it’s all about.

“I hope I’ve left a legacy,” she added. “I did tell them, ‘You can call if you really need some help.’ But I think it’s time to step away.”

The outpouring of gratitude and appreciation that has surrounded her announcement to retire has caught her a bit off guard, Baker said.

“I’m so overwhelmed,” she said. “I’m just floored, almost embarrassed. “I just thought I’d go quietly into the night,” she added. “I don’t think one expects that, ‘Oh, I’m going to retire and this stuff will happen.'”

In the wake of three very tragic losses among the BHS staff last year — McAllister, Mike Anderson and Mike Roe —  Baker said she had the unfortunate opportunity to attend the memorials of her three good friends, and had a personal realization.

“The thing that struck me during that was, I wonder if they knew how many people really loved them?” she said.

“It’s nice at a memorial, but it’s amazing to be felt, all this love and the compliments and going from backstage [and] all of a sudden your in the front.”