It's getting to be the time of year when many seniors are buried in the depths of the library, feverishly pounding out page after page of their senior thesis, fueled by caffeine and a thinly-veiled panic-but not Rachel Lehmann '08. At 3:15 p.m., Sunday afternoon, in Slosberg Recital Hall in front of an audience of 160 people, the lights went down, the band started to play and one way or another, Lehmann's years of work came to their conclusion. Guilty! A Musical Murder Mystery, the musical that Lehmann composed and co-wrote as her senior thesis, was out of her hands. Now its fate rested in the hands of nine very talented musicians and, of course, the waiting audience.For Lehmann, the performance was the culmination of a lifelong dream. "This is something I always wanted to do, ever since I knew what a musical was," she said in an interview before the show. After learning that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice collaborated on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as a one-act musical in college, Lehmann wanted to follow in their footsteps.

When Lehmann arrived at Brandeis, she wasted no time in pursuing her dream. She asked renowned composition professor David Rakowski (MUS) to be her advisor and spent a summer laying down the framework for her new musical, with "lifelong friend" Leah Edelman '08 helping with the book and lyrics.

Inspired by Chicago and the movie Clue, Lehmann chose a whodunit plot involving a billionaire's murder: "A billionaire is poisoned, and four suspects are brought into the police station," his neglected wife, his impoverished brother, his sexy maid and his egotistical business partner. "At the beginning, they all look guilty, but the real murderer is revealed at the last second!" said Lehmann.

For almost two years, Lehmann worked with Rakowski exhaustively, composing at an impressive pace. "I was writing around one song every two weeks, then four songs over the summer," ending up with 14 songs total.

While Rakowski offered a guiding hand with the musical composition, Lehmann turned to another Brandeis professor, Pamela Wolfe (MUS), to bring a dramatic edge to the staging and performance. "She's giving me a more professional eye and helping the singers really bring the music to life," Lehmann said.

All of these aspects came together at the preformance, when an enthusiastic audience had the opportunity to see Lehmann's work speak for itself. Guilty! is charming, sweet and funny, but could have benefited from an editor's hand-nearly all of the songs are at least one verse too long, and the lyrics often venture into triteness. Do we really need yet another ballad that includes the line "I looked inside myself to find the courage?" Or a cascade of clichés like "Illusions died!/ He lied! Pushed me aside! I cried?"

Still, Lehmann and Edelman hit the mark on quite a few tunes. The standouts include the breezy, jazzy and very catchy "Just Something About Him," in which the billionaire's wife tells the story of how they fell in love, and "It's Hard to Say Goodbye," a graceful love song whose chorus has a moving folk-ballad simplicity.

The cast and pit orchestra all performed with spirit and skill. Especially good were Matt Stern '08, whose flamboyant, delightfully self-absorbed businessman provided most of the show's laughs, and Elizabeth Abbate '10, who played the billionaire's widow with a refreshing mix of girlish charm and mature strength.

Guilty! is a strong start for a beginning composer, and fortunately, Lehmann has no plans to stop here. Next year, Lehmann will enter a master's program in education for social studies, but will also follow in the footsteps of her mother, who is a lifelong part-time composer and "a wonderful role model." Lehmann said she intends to continue composing music "as a hobby" and possibly even expand Guilty! into a full-length show.