In late April, we reported on Woodbridge, New Jersey’s Ross Street School, where the elementary school’s vocal music teacher Mark Filoramo was teaching his kids the music of jam-band royalty, Phish. After releasing a devastatingly cute video of the students singing Phish’s “More”, we spoke with Filoramo, who shared that the song was being prepared for use in his original Phish musical. Titled Contact: The Quest for the Black Circle, Filoramo’s not-for-profit play was scheduled to be performed by Ross Street School’s 4th and 5th graders on May 22nd.

The heartwarming tale is set in a “far-away planet where animals rule the world,” with a bunch of animals going on an adventure to learn more about a mysterious “Black Circle” that has appeared in the woods. As previously noted, Filoramo’s kid-friendly Phish musical features classics like “Halley’s Comet”, “Birds of a Feather”, “Bouncing Around The Room”, “The Wedge”, “Sparkle”, “Simple”, “Character Zero”, “My Sweet One”, “Theme From The Bottom”, “Blaze On”, “Contact”, and “More”.

With the amazing 4th- and 5th-grade students at Ross Street School having just performed Contact‘s debut this week, Filoramo shared videos of the kids’ performance. He also noted after the performance, “The show was very well received by the parents—they really enjoyed it… How can you not enjoy an evening of Phish’s music?”

You can check out a full video as well as highlights of the Phish musical and read a full synopsis of the Contact: The Quest For The Black Circle below.

Contact: The Quest For The Black Circle (Full Performance)

Contact: The Quest For The Black Circle (Highlights)

[Videos: Mark Filoramo]

As the synopsis for Contact: The Quest for the Black Circle reads:

In a far-away planet where animals rule the world, the small animals gather for their weekly pow-wow where they meditate and focus on important aspects of life.  A cool animal named Jezmund announces at the end of a pow-wow that he has discovered a mysterious “Black Circle” in the woods and that he wanted a group of volunteers to explore with him and find out what this “Black Circle” is.  A group of animals agrees to accompany him on his mission and head out into the woods. During their trip, they encounter what they think is a scary group of big vicious animals carrying weapons, however, they soon find out that they are harmless creatures that are actually carrying instruments for their band.

They eventually become friends and explain to them about their quest to find the “Black Circle”. The band recommends that they see the “Man Mulcahey” who can lead them to the “Black Circle”. The two groups set off together and eventually find the “Man Mulcahey” he was able to lead them to the “Black Circle”. When they finally found it, he was quickly amused at discovering that it was only an old car tire.  The animals were disappointed that there was nothing magical about the tire and they wondered why there was not more to life. The “Man Mulcahey” assured them that life is about the journey and spending time with loved ones and not about stuff we find along the way. The animals all learned their most valuable lesson.