For the sixth year in a row, students in Lopez School’s Musical Theatre class will present an original musical play developed in their semester-long course.

This year’s creation, “The Island,” will be presented at the Lopez Center for Community and the Arts on Wednesday, May 22 at 7 p.m.

The show lasts less than one hour and is appropriate for all ages.  There is no admission fee.

Musical Theatre class brings together students in grades six through twelve, who select the course for a variety of reasons.  This year’s group is made up almost wholly of middle school students, which makes their production all the more remarkable.  Once enrolled, students are given the option of gravitating toward music or drama, though it is possible to do both.  A theme for their show is selected – in this case, “a mystery” – and then the fun begins.

Brainstorming sessions develop a list of possible characters and settings, which in turn inspire ideas for songs to include in the show.

For example, “The Island”  features the popular 1960s song, “Secret Agent Man,” because some of the first characters created for the play were spies.

Weeks are spent practicing songs and developing plot and character ideas.  Next, students begin to take on roles and begin to improvise dialogue based on the play synopsis.

Slowly the improvised scenes, songs and original orchestrations are combined. The final weeks are spent rehearsing the entire musical play and adding choreography. Some rudimentary set pieces, props and costumes help add flavor to the “performance,” but co-teacher Richard Carter is quick to point out  that the class is about process, not end result.

“What makes this class so exciting and so much fun is that we all literally start with nothing, and less than four months later we’ve created a very viable piece of musical theatre,” said Carter.

Together with music teacher Ann Marie Fisher, Carter guides and collaborates with students, but never tells them what they must do.

“The work is entirely student-driven, and I think that makes the class unique,” he adds.  “In a lot of ways, it’s the most practical class they’ll ever take.  They have to work together to build a product from scratch.  That can be applied to so many situations in adult life.”

“The Island” begins aboard a cruise ship with a curious assortment of passengers and crew.  On New Year’s Eve at the stroke of midnight, a mysterious siren sounds and the partygoers find themselves inexplicably deposited on a sparsely populated tropical island, with its own strange cast of characters.  One by one the victims begin to disappear, but with the combined skills of those remaining and a little bit of luck, the stage is set for a final confrontation with the evil mastermind who’s behind it all.

Stay tuned, but not for long: “The Island” plays for one night only.  So sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip . . . .