The story behind the world premiere of the musical Glory Days, now at Virginia's Signature Theatre, sounds like show-biz legend: Nick Blaemire and James Gardiner, a couple of 20-year-old kids from the Washington suburbs, collar Signature artistic director Eric Schaeffer and demand he listen to one of their songs. He does, and he likes it. Dissolve to three years later, and this autobiographical, 90-minute pop-rock musical, directed by Schaeffer -- and with that song intact -- proves to be both raw and very real.

Taking place in real time on a May evening, Glory Days introduces us to four high school buddies seeing each other for the first time about a year after graduation. Social out[...]