Life has come full circle for longtime friends Robert Calandra and Howard Burke, who created the new musical “The Lost Tango.” That this work will make it onto a live stage is a tribute to their persistence and underlying belief in the inestimable worth of musical storytelling.

“The Lost Tango” will premiere at the Venice Island Performing Arts Center in Manayunk on Nov 21. It is an original musical about six friends who reunite at their old bar. Secrets emerge to shake the tree — some liberate and some destroy. Dramatic interest lies in the characters’ response to relationship-altering discoveries.

Calandra and Burke grew up in earthy Greys Ferry, graduating from Bishop Neumann High School in 1969. They first met the year before, during rehearsals with the South Philadelphia String Band. In later years, they would gather with friends at the “Lost Tango” bar at 20th & South Streets, to shoot the breeze, and to see and be seen. At the time, Calandra and Burke formed a duo in the folk music vein, performing in local venues including the legendary Main Point. But in 1980, these two went separate ways.

Calandra became a staff writer for the Bucks County Courier Times, then worked as a freelance writer for prominent national and local publications, including People Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Magazine and the Chestnut Hill Local, winning national and state journalism awards. (Just this year, Calandra won a first-place Keystone Media Award for his article on the Weavers Way Co-Op for the Local’s Wissahickon Magazine).

Burke worked in building automation for Honeywell and Johnson Controls, finishing his career with the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. While he earned a living engineering apparatus to make people comfortable, he continued to compose music. When the friends reunited in 2014, old memories and ambitions magically rekindled. “This is my third attempt at a musical and certainly my most successful so far,” Burke said.

In “The Lost Tango,” Ben and Cindy are engaged. They set up a party to celebrate with friends. “I can’t say that anything specifically influenced me in writing the libretto,” Calandra said. “The genesis was to write a show based on our songs. ‘What’s Going on Here,’ the first song we wrote together way back when, is about being in a bar and watching people drinking and trying to find love, if only for one night.”

Writing the musical was the easy part. Creative work is arduous; pitching a musical hat-in-hand to get it on stage is onerous. Burke and Calandra found a taker in 2019, a South Jersey theater group. But in the aftermath of COVID, the troupe disbanded. They kept knocking on doors. In the summer of 2024, former Local publisher Daralyse Lyons introduced them to folks at the Venice Island Performing Arts Center, and their ordeal was over.

In their early days, Calandra would typically write a lyric and Burke would compose the music. But the writer/composer relationship in creating “The Lost Tango” was more elastic. Burke told the Local, “I helped create the skeleton of the story but Bob put the meat on the bones.” Burke also wrote the lyrics for five of the songs to push along the narrative.

At first blush, the story aspect of “Lost Tango” is a familiar trope: Old friends meet and secrets emerge which create dramatic consequences. “There is no big twist to the story,” Calandra said. “The show is really about everyday people and how they deal with life’s unexpected turns, love in all its aspects and support and safe harbor good friends provide.”

Beth Criscuolo directs the show, and the two friends were periodic consultants at rehearsal, with a focus on questions of character and motivation. They were delighted to see Criscuolo bring their bar scene to life, and especially surprised with the addition of spirited dance scenes by choreographer Maria Jackson.

“The Lost Tango” will run for two nights, Nov. 21-22, at the Venice Island Performing Arts Center, 7 Lock Street, in Manayunk. Information and tickets are available at veniceisland.org. The show was underwritten by the Gertrude Solkov Memorial Fund, and her surviving family will attend on opening night.