Last weekend, under the soaring wooden arches of Beckham Hall,  one of this fall’s few student-written shows opened with dark, churning chords reminiscent of “Sweeney Todd.”

“The Canterville Ghost,” was written, composed, and directed by a new group known as the Wesleyan Musical Collective and produced by Second Stage. As a new musical—particularly one written by a large group of people—it has a lot of promise, although some patches are still decidedly rough.

The basics of the plot, based on a short story by Oscar Wilde of the same name, follows Sir Simon de Canterville, a medieval ghost who murdered his wife many years ago and has been living in his old house, Canterville Chase. He has been haunting tenants in the house for years, even killing one or two by fright. But now he has met his match: a family from America, made up of the ambassador to the United Kingdom and his wife, son, and daughter. And for the life (or death) of him, Sir Simon can’t make them afraid.

“Canterville” was a solid show, though the quality of the music certainly varied. Far too many times I felt as though the composers had only figured out a verse line and a chorus line, and then proceeded to repeat them ad nauseum until an arbitrary end to the song. In a similar problem, lyrics frequently felt shoehorned into the music—this isn’t to say they weren’t clever, but perhaps they were too clever in some cases. In many cases I enjoyed the wordplay, but it didn’t always fit in with the music.

The acting, on the other hand, was generally good. Nick Anthony ’13 was a phenomenally strong baritone lead as Sir Simon, playing the part with a manic intensity that toed the line between serious drama and comedy, and Christine Treuhold ’13 nearly stole the show as Washington Otis, the ambassador’s teenage son. A latecomer to the show, Amanda Sonnenschein ’14 was also strong, although it wasn’t entirely clear whether she was meant to be a hopeless romantic or simply hopelessly naive (or perhaps hopelessly slow). But she had a beautiful voice that worked well in her several ballad pieces, despite the slow pacing that the composers chose to inflict on her.

Sara Guernsey ’15 was also strong as the mother of the Otis clan, although she had less to do than her children; the father, played by Dan DeBonis ’12, offered a competent, though not earth-shattering, performance. Becca Wilton ’15 also appeared for a few scenes and one song in the woefully underdeveloped part of Mrs. Umney, the groundskeeper for the estate.

What the show truly lacks—ironically, given that its focus shifts from comedic haunting to the melodrama of Sir Simon’s “moving on” in the second act—is a sense of completion. Many of the songs feel unfinished, ending abruptly without having built to an obvious conclusion, and several scenes feel the same way. Characters in the book sometimes sound as though they’re simply reciting information that they know the audience needs. Some of this is, of course, due to the direction—while some choices worked very well (Sir Simon’s house exit was brilliant), there were frequently actors sitting or standing still to talk or sing onstage. And if the actors have no reason to be engaged in what they’re doing, why should we?

Still, the show was a strong first offering from a group that I hope to see continue production—and possibly continue work on this script. Both the group and the show have enormous potential.