is a high school musical—a comedy about the stresses of senior year, the college admission process, and the anxieties of teenage ambition. It’s a satire on teachers, parents, colleges, celebrities, the money culture—and even takes a few pokes at Disney’s High School Musical.

It tells the story of the senior class at Erma Schmoe High School, which unwittingly becomes the object of an experiment testing the famous laziness so common in the final year in high school. When the seniors bomb their first-quarter grades and tests, they get rejected by the elite "Holly League" colleges. They and their hovering parents and fear that their lives are hopelessly ruined. Things go madly awry when the seniors get wise to the experiment and decide to get even by having the worst case of "senioritis" in history.

They construct a new society—"Senioropolis"—with zero stress. This gets them national publicity, and it also gets them in trouble with the Superintendent, who threatens to shut down Senioropolis and keep the seniors from graduating. To save their society, and to persuade the Superintendent to let them graduate, the seniors put on a "High School Mythical," a musical about the path to college. The "Mythical" is so successful that it earns global attention, and the Erma Schmoe seniors become famous. Eventually, the wicked purpose of the experiment is revealed and the seniors are allowed to graduate. Colleges are so infatuated with the seniors’ new celebrity status that instead of charging tuition, they pay the Erma Schmoe seniors to attend. In the end, the seniors celebrate their "early admission to life."

The seniors go from being high achieving and stressed out to being laid-back and chilled out. They experience unwanted tension in both situations. The Erma Schmoe seniors learn that finding a happy medium between high stress and taking it easy is the best solution to surviving high school (or life, for that matter.)

The score includes 18 original songs, on topics ranging from grade inflation ("C’s and D’s are Very Good for You") to college rejection letters ("However"), to hovering parents ("High School Parent Blues"), to the temptations of ambition ("Rich and Famous").

This new musical is the creative work of nine high school students from Virginia and Maryland— two book writers, two lyricists, four composers, and one digital artist—with adult Cappies advisors.

will be performed by the award-winning cast and crew of 2007 Cappies International Theater. The cast will include “Cappie" winners in the lead actor and actress categories in sixteen cities across the US and Canada. They will present the musical at the Theater Lab of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts at 7 PM on August 6 and 7. A CD will be recorded, and a feature-length movie will be filmed, thanks to a grant from the Arts Council of Fairfax County.

This is the second year the Cappies have produced a student-written musical. Last year’s musical, Edit:Undo, is about teens in the digital age. (See www.editundo.org.) A CD and DVD of that show can be obtained by visiting this page.

To learn more about the Cappies, the international "Critics and Awards" program for high school theater and journalism students, playwrights, and composers, please see www.cappies.com.