One week from tonight, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “South Pacific” opens at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater – the first Broadway revival of the musical in 59 years.

But tonight is another opening night of “South Pacific” that also happens to be on Broadway – 103 S. Broadway – at Tarrytown’s Washington Irving Intermediate School. It’s Sleepy Hollow High School’s production, with a cast of 31 and an orchestra of 18.

Director Gail Persad, the head of Sleepy Hollow’s music and fine arts department, says she chose “South Pacific” because she liked the music and the message of tolerance.

“I think the community can relate to the message,” she says.

Based on James Michener’s “Tales of the South Pacific,” the musical tells the story of an island full of nurses and an Army construction battalion – the Seabees. There are two love stories: Nurse Nellie Forbush falls for French plantation owner Emile de Becque and Lt. Joe Cable falls in love with the Polynesian girl, Liat.

There is also prejudice, as Nellie’s Arkansas roots won’t allow her to love a man who had been married to a non-Caucasian and Cable worries that his Philadelphia family wouldn’t respond kindly to his bringing a Tonkinese girl home.

Senior Kevin Blank, 18, plays Cable, a man whose frustrations boil over in the song “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” in which he blasts racism and prejudice, the values that were instilled in him.

“They wanted Rodgers and Hammerstein to take the song out of the show,” Blank says. “But they said if they took it out, they might has well not do the show because that’s how they were making their point.”

Blank says Cable is a military character – responding to and giving orders – “until the defining scene when he meets Liat on the island and you suddenly see something else about him besides the fact that he’s a soldier.”

Madeleine Dopico, 16, a junior, plays Nellie.

“She’s a small-town girl not used to the big world around her and people with differences,” she says. “She’s sort of prejudiced and stuck in her own ways.”

But there are many sides to her, Dopico says.

“She gets to be bubbly and bright, but she also has her more upset moments when Emile – the man she falls in love with – goes off to war.”

Nellie has several wonderful Rodgers & Hammerstein songs to sing – “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair,” “I’m in Love with a Wonderful Guy” and “Cockeyed Optimist,” among them. But Dopico’s favorite moment is Act 2’s “Honey Bun” when, dressed as a sailor, she sings about her “girl,” Luther Billis, who is dressed in a grass skirt and coconut-shell bra.

“I get to run around and twirl with one of my best friends, Adam Becker,” she says. “It’s the kind of thing we do in our spare time anyway, twirling and dancing and singing. So we get to take that energy and put it on the stage.”

Becker, 17, a senior, plays Billis, a character who can get you anything you need – for a price.

“He’s like a crazy, wheelin’ and dealin’ kind of guy,” he says. “He fits my personality pretty well. I get to ham it up out there.

“Honey Bun” is his moment to shine – pure slapstick – but Becker says there’s more to Billis than coconuts and a grass skirt.

“The challenge is knowing when to be serious and when to be funny,” he says. “I really do love Nellie and right after this big, funny ‘Honey Bun’ number, I have to be serious and be able to turn off the comedy.”

Britney Fitzgerald, 16, is a junior who plays Bloody Mary, another character who mixes comedy with drama. At her comic best, she’s a wheeler-dealer who is Billis’ main competition for GI bills.

She says her character could best be summed up in her line, “You like? You buy?”

But Bloody Mary is also a mother who’s trying to find a better life for her daughter – even if that means handing her over to Cable, an American she thinks will do right by her.

Bloody Mary’s songs demonstrate that range. In “Bali Ha’i,” when she’s trying to lure Cable to the mysterious island where her daughter lives, the notes are long and sustained, languid. In “Happy Talk,” she’s playing matchmaker, urging Cable and her daughter to “talk about things you like to do.” Those notes are choppy, staccato.

As the French plantation owner Emile de Becque – Nellie’s love interest – 18-year-old senior A.J. Hinds gets to do something he hasn’t done often in past roles: sing in his natural bass-baritone voice.

“In past years, I’ve sung tenor parts,” he says. “I was Linus in ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,’ last year. Not a real bass part there.”

If the notes fit him better this year, so does de Becque’s depth.

“He’s a real person,” Hinds says. “He has the full range of emotion. He’s drunk and dancing with Nellie, he’s loving his children, he’s angry because of the racism and he’s lovesick when Nellie won’t talk to him because of her prejudice. He’s a fully human character.”

Emile sings some of the most romantic music ever composed for musical theater, including “This Nearly Was Mine,” and “Some Enchanted Evening,” a song Hinds has been living with for months.

“That was the song I did for my audition and I sang it over and over again in the shower, when I woke up in the morning, all day,” he says.

“It’s a wonderful falling-in-love song. I especially like the moment in the second verse when he sings:

“Some enchanted evening

Someone may be laughing.

You may hear her laughing

Across a crowded room.

And night after night

As strange as it seems

The sound of her laughter

Will sing in your dreams.”

“For me, that’s the epitome of falling in love,” Hinds says.

Sounds like some enchanted evening on Broadway, in Tarrytown.

Photo by Mike Roy/The Journal News: Sleepy Hollow High School actress Madeline Dopico, 16, portraying Nellie Forbush, participates in a rehearsal for the musical “South Pacific” at Washington Irving Middle School in Tarrytown.
“SOUTH PACIFIC”
Where: A Sleepy Hollow High School production at Washington Irving Intermediate School, 103 S. Broadway, Tarrytown.
When: Tonight, tomorrow and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $10, $5 for students.
Call: 914-332-6223.
With: Madeleine Dopico, A.J. Hinds, Claire Buckley, Robert Dondiego, Mike Wu, Britney Fitzgerald, Ravon Effort, Adam Becker, David Emma, David Salter, Ben Slaw, Kevin Blank, Greg Valdespino, Peter Yannantuono, Gordan Grejak, David Remple, Matt Valdespino, Aimee Vachon, Victoria Nadile, Melanie Gold, Hannah Becker, Corinne Szeliga, Polina Ionina, Katy Wood, Natalie Suarez, Sara Fielgelson, Violet Overn, Sarah Pena, Aslin Melendez, Lily Schroedel, David Hinds, Nicole London, Jenny Kessman, Lauren Chin, Eva Kramer, Dara Brennan, Landon Becker-Parton, Layla Fassa, Gabby Correa, Sarah Camlic, Matt Durso, Danielle Fanelli, Bitna Kim, Mary Rosenberg, Norah Carney, Will Royston, Anna Bisaro, Mike Leeper, Alex Berger, Carl Robinson, Jake Von Heill, Megan Lindon, Josh Mandel, Sam Dilthey, Brittney Trenczer, Hwa-Sung Erstling, Cody Hume, Anna Wray