Once finished, Jesuit High School Sacramento Drama’s 2024 spring production “children&art: A Song Cycle” will mark a first for the program: its first original musical. The cast for children&art met just nine weeks ago, having to write, produce, choreograph, and rehearse an entirely original show in under 90 days.

Children&art is inspired by students’ experiences during and after the pandemic. The production does not follow a linear plot, but rather a song cycle structure, made up of 10 individual songs which relate to the underlying theme of joy found through art. 

Creating an original show is not an easy task. Jesuit’s 2023 fall play, “My Pandemic Love Story,” signified the first time in Jesuit Drama’s 58 year history that it undertook and accomplished such a feat. Now, just a few months later, they are doing it again with children&art. 

“The fall play was the first time we had a piece written completely by our cast, not adapted from a book, trial, or other printed source,” said Assistant Director Rachel Malin. “It was 100% [the student’s] words, their stories, their experiences. The Spring Musical is continuing that theme. None of the music in our show existed prior to the beginning of our rehearsals.”

With children&art, Jesuit Drama is taking a step into unknown territory. For George Srabian ’25, the freedom of writing an original musical has been empowering and exciting.

“Mr. Trafton said, ‘I don’t think what the world needs right now is another student production of “Oklahoma,”’” George said. “[‘Oklahoma’ is] a great musical, but we’ve been finding that we have the power to do something more meaningful and we can accomplish great things. I’ve at least been having a blast being able to write and have so much creative input on the show.”

Since this musical is being written from the ground up, the cast and writers have dedicated their evenings to working on children&art. 

“We’re contributing a lot,” said Brady McMains ’26. “We’re putting in hours of practice. Usually we stay at school till 9 p.m. at night working on this because we are committed. This is important to us.”

The extra hours these students put in make up for the limited number of calendar days they’ve had to work together. The student’s shared passion for this project has driven them to achieve as much as they have in such little time. 

“We have some amazing people in the group and cohesion is just great,” Brady said. “Everyone works really well together. We’ve already completed quite a few songs and we’re in the late drafting process of a couple of them. Now [we’re] just working on composing music to go along with the songs, and keeping our creative juices flowing. Despite all odds, we are very far ahead.”

Just a few weeks ago children&art looked like it it wasn’t going to be completed, with the play having to be written from scratch in very little time.

“I always hear from people whenever they ask me, ‘Oh, when’s the show?’” George said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s in March.’ And they’re like, ‘You’re going to be able to do that?’ There is so much doubt. It was definitely a slow start, so it seemed like there wasn’t a lot of progress.”

Now, however, those concerns seem irrelevant. With time, the cast has grown together and production is in full throttle, fueled by these students’ collective dedication and love for their craft. 

“We’re starting to find our groove, find our element, and we’re still working on [songs] now,” George said. “We’re working every day at practice – we’re writing, we’re singing, we’re just seeing if things work. Now that we’re finally getting there, [the songs are] going to start being made much quicker.”

Despite so little time to accomplish something that’s never been done in Jesuit Drama’s history, children&art is shaping up to be a success. Brady sees a bright future for the program.

“Who knows what direction Drama could go next?” Brady said. “We performed Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ last year – going from that to this is quite the leap. So who knows where we could go from here?”

This year’s Spring Musical sets a new milestone for Jesuit Drama and possibly a new direction moving forward. Children&art will reflect the 100’s of hours of work the cast has devoted to its production, but most of all, the courageous step they have taken in writing their own original musical. In a way, children&art can already be seen – not on stage, but in its production. This show is built off of the joy the cast has found in creativity, the joy they have found through art.

“Children&art: A Song Cycle” premieres on March 8 at 7 p.m. at the Blackbox Theater. Tickets can be purchased here.