The island could be any island. Anyone with connections to an island — such as those of us who live on or visit Martha’s Vineyard — will think it’s their island. The year is 1942, and although there’s a major war going on and hairstyles and clothes are vintage to our modern sensibilities, the scene of three teen males (provenance Brooklyn, Yonkers and New Jersey) slapping hands at the pier for the start of another season is interchangeable from the scene of all teen males regrouping at the start of all the summers in time.

All three boys are looking for love, and they’ll find it tailored to their characters: Hermie (Jonah Lipsky), high school sophomore, is both a randy teen but also a hard-core romantic. His first sight of the beautiful, young, married Dorothy (Katie Feeks), gazing blondly and wistfully, platform-heeled and willowy, from the porch of her beach house — her solider husband (Jon Ryan) has been freshly summoned to war — is enough to fire up Hermie’s dream of perfect love.

Oscy (Evan Baron) is an aspiring playboy with more testosterone than brains — the target audience for whom, decades later, the Beach Boys would write such songs as I Get Around and Little Deuce Coupe. Oscy seeks love enough to furnish him with steady sex, but it’s well-known that guys possessed of this degree of shallowness suffer a high turnover of girlfriends, otherwise known as half-night stands.

Benjy (Jerome Pikor) is one of those boyish darlings who is intellectually omnivorous (he loves birdwatching and books) but physiologically delayed. All he really requires at this point in life is someone to share his interests; love and sex will arrive for him years into the future.

This rite-of-passage story first appeared as a novel, then a movie, both written by Herman Raucher. Later it was developed into a stage musical with book by Hunter Foster and music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum. Under the aegis of Island Theatre Workshop, and appearing at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven, the Summer of ’42 is directed and choreographed by Taffy McCarthy. Musical director Linda Berg elicits the luscious score from the piano, with Mike Alverice on drums and Anne Davey on clarinet. The result is a perfect evening of summer enchantment.

The most piquant moments are offered by an adorable trio of young actress/singers, Rosie Bick, Anna Yukevich and Zada Clarke. While they play the love interests for our three young heroes, they also team up for Andrews Sisters-style numbers, sometimes clad in sexy 1940s-type summer dresses, other times wearing khaki skirts, ties and army caps. Ms. McCarthy loads the ingénues up with dance mannerisms of the day from wagging fingers, to hands-on-knees-behinds-wiggling, to shimmying shoulders, to pinup girls military salutes. They sing songs with titles such as You’re Gonna Miss Me and Oh Gee I Love My G.I. and you find yourself wondering why modern hip-hop video producers think they’ve taken singing and dancing moves to any more sexy or appealing heights.

Wardrobe mistress Martha Yukevich, who made her costuming bones with the Provincetown Playhouse, the Rowley Dinner Company and the Charles Playhouse, has pulled together a panoply of outfits that bring the period alive for us. Sets by Jim Airasion, Kevin Ryan and Brad Austin evoke dune grasses and two key interiors — Dorothy’s cottage and the grocery store/soda fountain of Mr. Sanders (Don Lyons).

Mr. Lyons also provides period texture and comic relief in his cameos as Walter Winchell, tossing in vintage ad copy such as “The only underwear designed to keep you cool. And it won’t bunch up!” And “Send him off with a pack of Lucky Strikes — the cigarettes most doctors prefer!”

Atmospherics are created by Matthew Fisher on lights. Stage managers Jon Ryan and Molly Peters join Kaf Warman as production manager.

For performer/director/choreographer Taffy McCarthy and musical director Linda Berg, the years of dedication to the stage of these two Vineyard megatalents could not have come together in a better choice of material. Aside from an amusing riff between Hermie and Mr. Sanders about the range of condoms, The Summer of ’42 is fun for the whole family (and little kids probably have no idea that rubber can mean anything that doesn’t happen to be a yellow ducky.) Mostly the music and the story will remind us all of idyllic summers long gone and the heart-wrenching changes that first love leaves in its wake.

The play will run July 24, 25, 27, 29, 30 and August 2, each performance beginning at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 at the door.