On stage:

William Shakespeare never heard of autism, but Shakespeare's ''The Tempest" gives structure to a Jamaica Plain composer's new work about the disorder.

''All Lost to Prayers" is an operatic musical about a teenage boy with autism and the toll it takes on his family over one very difficult day. It premieres at the Boston Conservatory on Thursday, and continues through Sunday.

As defined by the Autism Society of America, autism is a complex neurological disorder that affects ''development in the area of social interaction and communication skills." Composer Dana Brayton and Tom Evans, a Holliston resident who wrote the libretto with him, found a parallel to autism's isolation in Shakespeare's deformed Caliban.

''I think it will generate a little bit of controversy in the autism community, and I think that's just absolutely terrific because it opens dialogue," said Brayton's neighbor Eileen Costello, a pediatrician at the Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center who specializes in autism spectrum disorders.

''People will read about it. Opera fans who know nothing about autism will read it just because they're interested in the music," said Costello, who has read the work and discussed it with Brayton. ''It's just another way to reach a broader audience who would not come to this topic naturally or through their own life experience."

Brayton and Evans were talking about isolation as subject when they re-read ''The Tempest." In Shakespeare's play, the sorcerer Prospero and his daughter Miranda are stranded on a lonely island inhabited by Caliban, a witch's deformed son. In ''All Lost to Prayers," a single father named Richard and his daughter Miranda are brought face-to-face with the isolation and conflict arising from the behavior of Miranda's autistic younger brother, Richard Jr.

''I have a degree in cognitive psychology, and I also worked in psychiatric hospitals and sheltered workshops for years before I decided to do music full-time. So I know autism. And reading Caliban's soliloquy, it sounded a lot like autism to me," Brayton said. ''He didn't know language, he wasn't taught language by Prospero. He was smart and he had intimate knowledge of where everything was found on the island, and he was very antisocial; he just wanted to be left alone."

While autism may have been around for a long time, the diagnosis belongs to the 20th century. Having found a topic meaty enough for a production, Brayton began to research.

''I found an association of families who have [autistic] sons in their 40s, and I just went and said, 'Can I interview you?' And I turned the tape recorder on, and they said, 'We don't really have anything to say.' But they then poured out their life histories.

''These are people that have had to kind of deal with autism on their own, and the profound weight it puts on their lives and everybody associated with them," Brayton said. ''The autistic kid is like this planet that has this incredible gravitational force that makes everybody else change. They can't really change."

Brayton, 53, teaches in the conservatory's composition, theory and music history department. His previous works include an operatic performance piece called ''Surviving Coyote" and an oratorio based on a Tim O'Brien book, ''The Things They Carried."

The new work ''sort of treads the line between musical theater and opera. It's not one or the other," he said. It will be performed by a student cast directed by Neil Donohoe, and a nine-member ensemble with Brayton as music director.

''All Lost to Prayers" is not the first opera/musical to deal with autism. There's a ''pop opera" called ''Day After Day" sold through autism groups, and autism was part of a chamber opera at last winter's ''Neurofest" in New York. It's even been suggested that the title character in the Who's ''Tommy" was autistic, his sensory handicaps metaphorical. And of course the best-known depiction of an autism-spectrum disorder was by Dustin Hoffman in the movie ''Rain Man."

Costello, who co-wrote the book ''Quirky Kids," says she told Brayton that some people may be troubled by the drama because it depicts the most intense kind of autism spectrum difficulties.

''On the one hand it's terrific that it's become a subject of a work of art. I think people will be fascinated by it." However, she said, she thinks Caliban's type of autism is extreme, ''and the suffering of the family is pretty profound. I think that the people in the world of Asperger's and higher-functioning kids might take offense and say kids are doing so much better than that today, families are doing so much better than that."

Brayton has already learned a lot about the topic, he said.

''The other thing I found out from my research is that autistic kids are often really good singers," Brayton said. ''My autistic guy is really awkward in his talking. His talking is very disconnected, disjointed. But his singing is beautiful."

''All Lost to Prayers" will be performed Thursday-Sunday at the Zack Box Studio Theater at the Boston Conservatory in the Fenway. Free, but reservations are recommended. Susan Langer, day school program director at the New England Center for Children, will lead a discussion about autism after the Sunday matinee. Call 617-912-9144 through Wednesday.