Finding their voice in new musical

Playwright Gail Phaneuf’s new musical about kids finding their way in an in-between world between childhood and the teens takes the stage at Middleborough High School this weekend.

It’s a play the Curry College playwright-in-residence began writing a few years before the subject of school bullying hit the headlines. Today, the story’s topical theme and its setting in the psychic jungle of the school lunch room strike a chord for the young people who perform in it or see it, Phaneuf said. But the play’s message is one of resourcefulness and growth, in tune with the dominant mood of the lively, upbeat stage musical genre.

An actor and director for more than 20 years, Phaneuf is an award-winning writer of plays and musicals including the comic musical “Monsters!,’’ which debuted at Boston’s CentaStage a few years ago and is currently in workshop development at an off-Broadway theater.

After spending 2 1/2 years “working by yourself in a back room’’ to write all elements of “The Love Note’’ — dialogue, music, and lyrics — Phaneuf saw her play first produced at Curry last year and at Noble and Greenough School in Dedham last summer. Other schools have expressed interest in producing it as well.

“The most gratifying and amazing thing about it is the kids love the show,’’ Phaneuf said last week. “They get hooked into it. They have a ball.’’

And after they see it, the play starts a dialogue about the bullying issue, she said.

A tale of the bullies who rule the cafeteria, the bookworms who hide from their peers, and the lunch lady who patrols the scene with a soup ladle, the action begins when Jessie arrives at a new school and attracts the attention of chief tormentor Brittany, who tricks her out of her lunch.

“As soon as the head bully Brittany steals her love note and bites into her tasty sandwich, Jessie knows she is in trouble,’’ Phaneuf writes in her notes on the play.

But relying on the support of her imaginary friend “Airy,’’ Jessie hatches a plan to foil the bullies and regain control of her lunch and her mother’s love notes.

“It’s about how you navigate through your life’’ in a world without adults, Phaneuf said. “She has to figure things out on her own.’’

The only adult figure at school with a sense of what’s going on is the lunch lady, who was damaged by her own childhood experience of being bullied and “shut down’’ emotionally as a result. The lunch lady’s experience introduces a darker theme, but she’s a character who feels hope as well as sadness.

“You’re peering into the world of the tweens, but with the heightened reality of musical theater,’’ a medium that accentuates the “iconic characters’’ of the bully, the bookworm, and the fantasy element of the imaginary friend, Phaneuf said. The existence of an imaginary friend is not too much of a stretch, the playwright said, since she had one herself at that age.

And the play’s psychology has a realistic basis in that children who are being bullied tend not to tell their parents and try to deal with their problem by themselves. They suffer silently, experts agree, out of humiliation and fear.

Middleborough High School’s young director, Rachel Sullivan, was attracted to “The Love Note’’ when she saw it performed at Curry College, where she was a communications and theater student. A 2008 college graduate, this is her first year as the high school’s theater director.

“Since it’s my first show, I still have those nerves,’’ Sullivan said, “but rehearsals are going great now.’’

Working alongside music director Justin Pittsley, Sullivan has been holding rehearsals since mid-September. The play’s cast of 20 high schoolers have risen to the demands of playing younger children. “At first it was like, can we do this?’’ Sullivan said. “Once they got into it, they responded really well. They had fun with it.’’

Since the plot springs from the bullying issue, the directors and cast had “a small chat’’ about the theme, and the youngsters agreed they were familiar with the dynamic.

But in the classical tradition of musical comedy, the goodness — and liveliness — of lovable characters prevail. “It’s a big ensemble,’’ Sullivan said. “Everybody sings.’’

Among the leads, sophomore Rachel Knight plays Jessie, freshman Michael Braddock plays Airy, senior Ruthie White plays Brittany, and senior Daniesha Richards takes the part of the Lunch Lady.

Robert Knox can be reached at rc.knox2@gmail.com.