“The Summer Within June,” a play written, produced and directedentirely by Mississippi School of the Arts junior Kelsey Adrianwill go onstage tonight at Lampton Auditorium at 7 o’clock.

The play will be the first in a planned series ofstudent-produced plays from the newly established literary artsdepartment, headed up by Dr. Jeanne Lebow. Lebow is involved in”Summer” only as an overseer, however.

“It’s totally a student-driven thing – I’m not really doinganything,” Lebow said. “I’m just present as an advisor toKelsey.”

The real work was done exclusively by Adrian, who wrote the playin only one month’s time in October 2007, held auditions, cast theplay and will be directing. And Adrian, 16, is not even aplaywright by trade – she specializes in digital art.

“I just wanted to see if I could really do it,” Adrian said.”It’s like, I can’t particularly draw, but I’m doing well indigital arts. I just want to be a well-rounded artist.”

The play was originally written as an assignment for a class:Introduction to Literary Arts. Adrian wanted to see the play cometo life, so she gained permission from Lebow and MSA ExecutiveDirector Dr. Vicki Lambert.

“I was told that if I could do it on my own, go ahead and doit,” Adrian said.

And so “Summer” was born, a darker play about severalcharacters, connected in their youth, each experiencing his or herown crisis.

“It’s about a woman named June and everyone she manipulates,”Adrian said. “Each character is in some way a characteristic ofmyself.”

Between her studies in digital arts, Adrian said she is writinga short story that she hopes to turn into a play sometime nextyear, which could work out well for the literary artsdepartment.

“We just started the literary arts program, and we hope toproduce plays the students write,” Lebow said. “Kelsey’s is thefirst.

She originally produced two scenes from it at an open houseevent we had for the school, and we all decided it would be a goodidea if she produced the whole play,” Lebow continued. “It’s herwork and it’s exciting to see a student take it all the way fromwriting it to staging it.”

Lebow said that writing plays will be one of the facets of theliterary arts program, which hopes to bring more student-producedplays to the stage in the future. Even though the program is new,she said applications for entry into the program are beginning toadd up.

Tickets for “Summer” will be $3 per adult and $1 perstudent.