At a glance

What started as an idle comment among friends has turned into a full-blown musical.

The Grandview Carriage Place Players will present, “One For The Show,” a twoact musical, in the Columbus Performing Arts Center.

The show, a satire of a high-school theater production, is an original piece co-written by Chipper Snow and teenagers Elizabeth Bergmann and Maggy Hamen.

All three have performed with the troupe for several years, and the idea for the musical originated during a car ride the trio shared after a show in the summer of 2015.

“We were listening to a Josh Groban CD, and I made some comment about how ‘Tenors get all the good songs; I should have been born a tenor,’” said Bergmann, 19, a freshman at Ohio State University.

“Chipper said, ‘That sounds like a song,’ and that sparked the whole thing.”

During the next year or so, the three came up with other songs that “theater kids” might sing, about missing a cue or being bored at rehearsal.

Snow, 31, composed the music.

John Heisel, who directs the group, said he was pleasantly surprised by the result.

“At first I was like, ‘That’s cute, guys,’” Heisel said. “But then they got serious and presented it to me, and I thought there was a message there that everybody needs to hear, about the importance of theater in our school programming.”

The plot revolves around a beleaguered high-school drama program. The show features a number of stereotypical characters: the diva female actor (played by Hamen), the frustrated director (Snow), the principal who is trying to shut down the program (Heisel), and so on.

“A lot of it is based on people we know, but a lot of it is exaggerated, too,” Bergmann said. “With our antagonists, we’ve never met anybody who was quite like that.”

Hamen, for example, said she has taken a while to get accustomed to the arrogance of her character, Francesca Principe.

“It’s definitely a stretch,” said Hamen, 15. “I’ve never played someone who is so ‘diva-y’ and rude.”

As the show’s premiere approached, its authors felt a growing pride.

“It’s really exciting, honestly,” Bergmann said. “It’s just great seeing the story and the characters that we created really come to life. And it’s great that we get to share it with everybody, too.”

“One For The Show” Columbus Performing Arts Center, 549 Franklin Ave. 614-645-3715, www.columbusrecparks.com 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday $5