Orange is the New Black-bingers and theatergoers alike are going to want to make their way to the Playhouse Theater sometime this week or next to catch the brand new musical, Love in Hate Nation. The musical is about a forbidden love between two teens at an all-girls juvenile correctional facility in 1962. It deals with topics from sexuality to suicide and doesn’t stop there.

Catch the trailer:

Not only is this show premiering worldwide in the School of Theatre through Centre Stage, but this is also the first musical commissioned as part of the Penn State Musical Theatre New Musicals Initiative. John Simpkins, the director of Love in Hate Nation and head of the musical theatre program on campus, brought in the New York-based writer, Joe Iconis, to help create the upcoming musical.

A short conversation with Simpkins and Iconis:

In the spring of 2016, Joe Iconis came to campus and met with the junior musical theatre class to get to know the students artistically and personally. It was through this personal connection that Iconis began crafting the story that became Love in Hate Nation. The characters that audiences will fall in love with on stage are true to 2017’s graduating class. This is a show written for and about Penn State students, framed in a setting that very few musicals play with.

Theatre-lovers on campus may remember Iconis’ name from the fall of 2016, when Centre Stage produced another one of his musicals, Be More Chill. The creative team working on Love in Hate Nation hopes it will find success in New York after its run on campus.

Love in Hate Nation opens this Friday, February 16, and runs through February 24. Tickets are available here, starting at $12.50 for students, $18.50 for a matinee performance, and $20 regularly.