SOUTH DEERFIELD — Frontier Regional School students will be setting sail into the Gulf of Mexico this weekend when they put on performances of “Wild Kate: A Tale of Revenge at Sea.”

While modern plays aren’t often in rotation at Frontier, the biggest twist from other school productions is in its showrunner: senior Leila Bosman, who has taken on directing duties, as the school wasn’t planning on hosting a spring play after its musical, but the theater students wanted one last show to close out the school year.

The play follows Isabel, a student who enrolls in High School on the High Seas, which is an educational institution set on a boat. Upon arrival, Isabel and her classmates find themselves swept off course as the captain of the ship and the show’s namesake, Wild Kate, is on a payback mission after suffering the loss of her brother.

With inspiration from Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Bosman said the fast-paced show touches on environmentalism, while keeping the drama and jokes coming.

“It’s a somewhat educational play, but it does a good job of not feeling like that,” said Bosman, who is directing her first-ever show. “It’s very, very funny.”

“Wild Kate: A Tale of Revenge at Sea” will be performed at Frontier on Friday, May 2, and continues through the weekend. The production is a one-act play and is about 90 minutes in length. The Friday and Saturday shows will be at 7 p.m. and the Sunday matinee will kick off at 2 p.m. Tickets are $7 for general admission.

Isla Sparrow, who is playing Wild Kate, said the show is quite “campy,” to the point where it’s like a “2000s’ movie on stage” as her character has a strong personality.

“She’s just really on this path of revenge for her brother and she gets kind of lost in it,” Sparrow said. “She’s very cool and kind of eccentric in a funny way.”

Sparrow added that the show’s production has come together pretty smoothly for being almost entirely student-produced.

“Leila has been a great director. We’ve only been doing this for three weeks and it’s a lot of new actors, so it’s been a very challenging experience. But, it was overall so fun,” she said. “It’s just been really cool to have something from the students; it wasn’t teacher controlled.”

Eighth grader Ava Jillson is playing Isabel, the protagonist, and she said the show runs the gamut of theater productions with moments that will make the audience laugh, alongside some more tense moments.

“It’s chaotic, dramatic, really funny, but also dark,” she said. “It’s been amazing. … I just hope people enjoy the show.”

As she prepares for her directorial debut, Bosman said the process has been a whirlwind, but everyone is ready for this weekend.

“It’s been quite stressful. There’s a lot of stuff I need to keep track of at once … but I’m really loving it,” she said, emphasizing how well the cast members have adapted to a quick production. “They’re doing really, really well with it. I’m very proud.”

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.