BUCKLAND — Graduating high school can feel a lot like going through a midlife crisis, says Mohawk Trail Regional School Stage Director Paul Johnson.

As they end their high school careers, students are faced with a lot of questions about the future: what college are they going to, what will they choose for a major, what do they want to be when they grow up? Johnson said these questions can feel overwhelming for young adults who are still trying to figure out who they are, which is why this weekend, the school will be performing “Tick Tick Boom,” an autobiographical musical about the midlife crisis of playwright Jonathan Larson.

Performances will be held in the Mohawk Trail Regional School auditorium on Friday, May 2, and Saturday, May 3, at 6:30 p.m. Tickets, which can be purchased at the door, are $12 for adults and $10 for students and seniors.

“Tick Tick Boom” tells the story of a Jon, an aspiring musical theater composer living in New York City in the 1990s. Jon feels like his life is ticking away and, as he approaches his 30th birthday, he wonders if his dreams will ever become a reality or if it is too late.

“I thought that would be a great musical for a high school to do because I love that message of, you are never too old, it’s never too late to chase your dreams. I know especially nowadays there’s huge pressures about college, to know what you want to do and get a job, but I think it’s important we talk about how you can wait. You don’t necessarily have to jump right into a career and you can change careers,” Johnson said. “You don’t have to know everything when you are 18, and I think that this musical does a good job of really showing that.”

Johnson said she chose “Tick Tick Boom” for the spring musical partly because it held a good message for students to hear, and partly because it is a script that only requires three actors, making it perfect for a small school theater department.

The script is flexible, with opportunities to add extra scenes and characters depending on the availability of cast members, or it can be performed with just a Jon, a Michael (Jon’s best friend) and a Susan (Jon’s girlfriend, which will be revised for the Mohawk Trail performance as the boyfriend Sammy).

“There’s lots of room for creativity with choreography, and for creativity with extra characters as well,” Johnson said. “We worked a lot in between the fall play and this musical on the students’ improv work and creating their own characters and songs, and I thought it would be cool to showcase their creativity through adding in those extra scenes and extra songs to this musical.”

This is Johnson’s second performance, and first musical with the Mohawk Trail students. She joined the school as stage director last fall and said it has been incredible to see how the students have grown as actors, both individually and working together as a cast.

“It’s been so great seeing them improve over the course of the year,” Johnson said. “I know them more, they know me more and they know each other more, so there is more of a sense of comfortability and familiarity, which makes it so much easier to boost creativity within each other and ourselves.”

She added that she was particularly impressed with how the students have grown as singers. Getting up on stage can be terrifying on its own, but singing can be even scarier, Johnson said. They spent the first few weeks of rehearsals just working on singing and the students progressed from singing under their breath to being able to belt out a tune.

“It was insane to see them at first kind of hide behind the piano, and then to really be belting out tunes in a theatrical way in front of their peers, it makes me really happy to see,” Johnson said. “It’s one of the most intimate musical instruments, the voice. I’m really proud of all of them for coming out of their shells for this musical.”

She added that the students have done an incredible job of embodying these characters who are 15 years older than they are, and really made the characters their own, although a few of the more explicit songs in the script were cut and replaced with songs that are more age-appropriate for high school students.

“I’m really excited to see how it turns out,” Johnson said.

Reach Madison Schofield at 413-930-4579 or mschofield@recorder.com.