YOU may not have heard of 13, the teen musical that launched a certain Ariana Grande to stardom.

With music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown and book by Dan Elish and Robert Horn, it is a "coming-of-age story about fitting in and standing out", performed by a summer school of teen performers who are going through exactly that same experience.

That makes it the perfect choice for York Musical Theatre Company's inaugural Stage Experience: two weeks of tuition and workshops in singing, acting and dancing, leading to five performances.

The Grand Opera House's annual Stage Experience was absent from the summer holiday calendar this year, so well done to YMTC for seeing an opportunity to test the waters with their own version, which has truly borne fruit in a fantastic, funny and fun production, full of polished, characterful performances that demand a return for this project next summer.

13 may be unfamiliar, but you really should get to know it this weekend, but hurry, hurry with making a booking. Wednesday's opening night had the House Full signs up and word of mouth will spread fast.

York Press:

The cast of 26 for 13 The Musical. Picture: Pink Lily Photography

The 90-minute show is packed with knowing, self-deprecating Jewish humour – imagine Woody Allen's neuroses applied to teens – typified by the four outsiders of the piece calling themselves "the crip, the geek, the Jew and his mother", although we never see the mother.

She is the reason that Evan Goldman (Millthorpe School pupil Edward Atkin, 15 and delightfully personable] must leave the Big Apple for Appleton, Indiana, one of those middle of Nowheresville towns beloved of American comedies. "And my life just went to hell." he says, in his narrator's role, as he reflects on his parents divorcing and now having to try to put together the best bar mitzvah with the best DJ in the very Catholic, not at all Jewish Appleton, as he turns 13.

How can he persuade his coolest classmates at the Dan Quayle High School to attend, as he navigates a world of nerds, jocks and cheerleaders, first kisses and heartbreak? On the one hand, he must negotiate with sports hero Brett (Adam Ward), ever so pretty, ever so naive Kendra (Mathilde Barker) and her conniving, jealous friend Lucy (Faye Stainton), with usually disastrous results.

On the other, he befriends the "geek", school swot Patrice (Alexis Jagger, the show's best singer) and the smartly subversive "crip", Archie (Robin Morgan, the outstanding comic talent), who refuses to be confined or defined by his muscle-wasting terminal illness (a condition that elicits the most irreverent song in a very irreverent script).

Director Richard Bainbridge, musical director Jon Atkin and choreographer Luke Redhead have produced a hugely amusing first show full of energy and panache and fabulous singing with good ensemble work and some ace scene stealing from the double act of Charley Tong's Eddie and Jack Hambleton's Malcolm.

"And I'm just getting started," says Evan at the end. So are this new company, but what a start.

13, York Musical Theatre Company Stage Experience, John Cooper Studio @41 Monkgate, York, tonight until Saturday. Box office: thelittleboxoffice.com/ymtc.