While many middle school students may be primarily concerned about canceled classes on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, administrators and teachers at the State College Friends School want students to recognize the importance of King's contributions to history and civil rights.

Thirty-three students from the school will perform King in Montgomery: Ten Years in the Non-violent Civil Rights Movement at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Monday at the State Theatre, 130 W. College Ave.

Margy Frysinger, the school's director of development, said taking the day off didn't seem appropriate to celebrate the holiday. The students will attend school until the first performance in the afternoon.

"We decided it was better to take the day 'on,' so the kids could learn more about Martin Luther King and what he did," she said.

The State College Friends School, 1900 University Drive, is an independent Quaker school with a total enrollment of 122 students from kindergarten through eighth grade.

The play, written by former Head of School Larry Boggess, will feature traditional spirituals performed by a student choir and an adult choir, along with depictions of important events King was involved in between the years 1955 and 1965.

This is the sixth year the play will be performed and the second year the State Theatre will host the event. Frysinger said part of the ticket proceeds will go to the King Center, a memorial and museum in Atlanta, Ga.

The Friends School is based on the ideals of equality, community, simplicity and harmony, Frysinger said.

"There were a lot of Quakers involved in the Civil Rights Movement and a lot of Quakers early on were abolitionists," she said.

Boggess said he wrote the play to educate students about the importance of King's legacy.

"I felt like the school should be doing something more to celebrate Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement," he said.

Frysinger said in addition to participating in the play, middle school students from the State College Friends School will also study the Civil Rights Movement during class.

The two choirs will sing 10 songs featuring some familiar spirituals as well as songs Boggess adapted from original field recordings taken during the time of the Civil Rights Movement.

"A lot of people in the audience sing along with the songs because they know them," Frysinger said. "It can be a really emotional experience for some people singing along. It's pretty powerful."

The choir will also recite some of King's lesser-known speeches while depicting events such as the Montgomery bus boycott, Boggess said.

"I wanted kids to hear other speeches from King that may have been equally as powerful, but they may not be as familiar with," he said.

The performance will be recorded and broadcast later in the week on C-NET, Centre County's government and education access channel.

Boggess said he hopes to continue the performance many years into the future.

"The messages of the show don't change regardless of what's going on in the world," he said. "[It provides] the message of equality, peaceful conflict resolution, individual courage and social justice."