As the lights went out and The Jackson 5’s ABC began playing, there was nothing left to do backstage, for adults and kids alike, but to get down with a final preshow dance, reveling in the excitement of closing night of the Fourth Grade Theatre Project performance of Calculated Risk.

This past weekend there were two plays performed by kids from the Tisbury school (Calculated Risk and Tornado Fourth Grade-O); this weekend there will be two more plays (Digging for Clues and A Map for Freedom), performed by students from the West Tisbury School.

Public performances are on Saturday at 2 and 7 p.m.; tickets can be purchased at the door for $6 and $4.

I have worked on both shows as an intern. It has been great to see the kids dive into the work of producing a play and come up with that hard-to-define thing that happens to adults and children alike when they become involved in a play. Call it freedom of expression.

The Fourth Grade Theatre Project involves teaching kids the basics: painting scenery, running the light board, selling ads for the program, and of course acting.

For some the experience pushes the boundaries of what they thought they were capable of.

“I knew I was sort of good at acting,” said Curtis Fisher of Vineyard Haven, “but I did not know I could really act in front of a lot of people.”

For others the fun of performing is the highlight. “I liked walking out on-stage and showing everybody me. It was fun,” said Graham Lewis, who had a cameo appearance toward the end of Calculated Risk.

During the final week of production the kids came to the playhouse every day to put the show together, combining all the elements of their hard work. Kids whose work needed to be finished before the final week of production took on other roles, such as Graham, who had been a scenic painter, but in the final week became both a stage-hand and an extra in the final scene of the show.

The project takes place over five to six weeks; the kids generate ideas, and codirectors MJ Bruder Munafo and Kate Hancock write the plays. After that the kids are involved in every aspect of production, and the playhouse employs 14 professional (or in my case, not so professional) theatre artists, making the teacher-student ratio less than one to three. The project spans the entire workspace of the playhouse, including a rented space next door on Church street in Vineyard Haven. The actors are on stage rehearsing scenes, while the technical team devises sound and light cues in the booth, and the production team pounds the pavement looking for ads.

By the time the kids arrive at the playhouse they already have had four sessions with the program directors, and are ready to begin their immersion into the world of theatre.

Kate said: “When I was with Mrs. Herman’s class and Veronika’s class [in the Tisbury School] and we asked them for feedback on the outline, they came up with so many wonderful ideas for their play, which was really exciting that so much of it came from them.” She continued, “It is not unusual that we get ideas from them but to have the volume of ideas that they came up with I think is a little unusual. It is really great; it made my job certainly as a playwright much easier and I’m sure MJ feels the same way too.”

The project began 15 years ago, serendipitously, Ms. Munafo recalled. “Georgia Morris [cofounder of the project] had a son — Sam — in fourth grade that first year. And the Tisbury School had more fourth graders than usual that year, and the school was under renovation, so they were looking for projects outside the school building,” she said.

And what started as a fun idea that fit the needs of the Tisbury School at the time has grown into something of an institution in children’s theatre on the Island.

“We discovered right away that nine and 10-year-olds were the perfect age — old enough to do the work and not yet too self-conscious. Lots of enthusiasm and imagination!” said Ms. Munafo.

Chris Brophy, a veteran actor on the project, has watched it change over the years. “[The project] used to be more stretched out, but now it’s more like the real time frame of doing a show, like you’re in a show and you are in and out in like four weeks . . . It’s improving the more that they do it,” he said.

Ms. Munafo has been thinking about where to go next with the project. “We’d like to publish some of the best of the plays so other schools could produce them, and write the book on how to do the Fourth Grade Theatre Project and make it available to other school systems and professional theatre companies,” she said.

She noted that the project is at its best when “the students are engaged, excited about what they are doing and proud of their achievements.” She said it provides “small personal triumphs for children that don’t always have that experience.”

It has been a joy to work with the kids.

Jonah Lipsky is a sophomore at Bennington College and is doing his Field Work Term working both at the Fourth Grade Theatre Project and at the Vineyard Gazette.