Oil City Symphony

Four middle-aged former classmates reunite in their Ohio high-school auditorium to perform a tribute recital for their retiring music teacher, Miss Hazel Reaves. The show turns their unfinished small-town ambitions and personal histories into a comic musical revue.

The book is credited to Mike Craver, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, and Mary Murfitt, with songs by various composers. Craver and Hardwick are especially associated with the show's musical and creative identity.

The off-Broadway production opened at the Circle in the Square Theatre Downtown on November 5, 1987. It later closed on May 7, 1989, after 626 performances.

It is staged as a school-auditorium recital rather than as a conventional plot-heavy book musical. The four performers move among instruments including piano, accordion, drums, violin, saxophone, flute, synthesizer, and vibraslap.