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James Mott, 12, said the group has always had a ridiculous amount of energy.

‘‘We have rehearsed before, but we were in this tiny room,” he said. ‘‘There was all this energy waiting to be let out. You feel like an atom bomb is going to go off.”

By the looks of students running off and onto stage and the director yelling orders to the technical crew, as well as the performers, the idea of an explosion seemed fitting.

However, for Harry Bagdasian, the director and playwright, and the rest of the cast and crew, the show must go on.

‘‘Sometimes I write these things and we never know how it’s going to turn out,” Bagdasian said. ‘‘That’s the beauty of a comedy show.”

This year’s show includes skits already written and performed by a Col. E. Brooke Lee Middle School Comedy Club alum, and also ‘‘No Child Left ... Where?” a one-act play for the second half of the show. Students also are given the chance to suggest changes in the script.

The Comedy Club, which is in its 12th year, usually meets once a week at the beginning of the year to learn about comedy and improvisation from experts, including veteran Comedy Club members, graduate students and Bagdasian. They spend most of the year, however, preparing for the big show.

Austen Villemez, who has just published ‘‘Law and Disorder,” a collection of comedy sketches developed at the Lee Comedy Club, has been working with the group for about 10 years and likes his teaching role.

Comedy Club is usually the first experience with theater for the middle school students, so they learn things like character development, stage left and stage right, how to project voice and how to stand in front of an audience, Villemez said.

However, unique to this year’s show is the music and songs that have been incorporated into the second act of the show. The play is about ‘‘Nicholbies,” a term that came from the acronym for No Child Left Behind, or NCLB. These Nicholbies take over the school and start outsourcing jobs in the school to aliens from outer space because they work for less. The students are then trained to be the new consumers of this new corporate school.

The plot takes some interesting twists and turns from there, but Bagdasian said the bizarre nature of the story is what makes it so entertaining.

The students agree.

Naomi Langhorne, who will sing and act in the show, said she thought the plot was ‘‘hilarious” and hopes that her family and friends think so, too.

‘‘[I hope that] people come and see that we’re trying to make them laugh and be happy about what they’re seeing,” she said.

Chris Brooks, a veteran of the Comedy Club and a 2002 graduate of John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring, has been helping students learn their songs. Brooks said adding songs was a great idea and thinks it will help students get out of their comfort zones.

‘‘It’s a big confidence-builder,” Brooks said. ‘‘It’s original material that everybody comes up with, so when it turns out good and [the audience] laughs, it’s tremendously exciting and there is no fear to get on stage.”

Ankita Gupta, 14, said she was excited to be able to add singing to her performance, but that her main concern was making people laugh.

‘‘We all have sorrows and laughing is often difficult, so it’s one of the best ways to be happy and have fun,” she said.

Bagdasian also said that while music was not the same component of the show, it might just give students who like to sing another outlet.

‘‘It’s a neat challenge,” Bagdasian said about using music with comedy. ‘‘It had a complexity on a couple levels. Not only do they have to learn the music, but they have to bolster the courage to get out there and sing it.”

Lee does not have a drama club, so this is the students’ only outlet for performance, said Kate Bagdasian, a stage manager, former Comedy Club member and Harry Bagdasian’s daughter.

‘‘[Using music] is breaking new ground, which is one of the things we like to do in the Comedy Club and be our own guinea pigs,” Kate Bagdasian said.

If you go

The Col. E. Brooke Lee Middle School Comedy Club will stage ‘‘Snicker ... Giggle ... Cackle ... SNARF!” 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the school, 11800 Monticello Ave., Wheaton. Contact Harry M. Bagdasian at 240-381-3196 or hbagdasian@aol.com.