As an enthusiast of 19th century obscure literature, Kit Goldstein Grant stumbled across a goldmine when she found a rare novel by Robert Louis Stevenson in her childhood home. Goldstein Grant, who was beginning to get a knack for composing musicals, read the novel and immediately began writing songs and a script based on the story. She saw the characters coming to life and wanted to see them come across the stage. Now, almost a decade later, her wishes are taking shape as she gears up to release the musical theater album for “The Wrong Box,” with a CD release party this Saturday, Aug. 17, at Professor Java’s in Colonie. However, the celebration of the album’s completion comes after almost 11 years of writing, composing, recording, editing, rewriting and rerecording. Goldstein Grant, who began writing musicals in her Niskayuna home at the age of 14, went to Union College to major in her creation of a cultural musical theater degree – a combination of studying musicals, English, history and theater. During her sophomore year at school, she began writing the script and music on piano for “The Wrong Box,” which was performed at the college. Yet after working on more than a dozen other musicals, studying orchestration at Julliard for a year and working for local companies like the Schenectady Theater for Children, Inc., the play wasn’t really touched after college. Goldstein Grant decided to pick the story back up when people came to her interested in performing the show. Unfortunately, she had a problem. She needed a demo. So, almost two years ago, she began planning out production and costs, starting an Indiegogo account to raise money. Finally, after recording 24 tracks with 11 singers at three local studios, the album is ready to be heard by the public and theater companies. “I’m relieved. It’s been a massive project,” Goldstein Grant said. “I love the characters in this and I love the story. I’d like to get it out there. I think it’s something people will like.” While a British version of the novel came out in 1966, Goldstein Grant said her musical sticks more closely to the original 1889 story. The story, co-written by Stevenson and his stepson Lloyd Osbourne at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, centers around two branches of a family competing to win a tontine, or a financial arrangement in which a group of investors put money into a fund and the last living investor collects all of the money. When the story starts, there are only two brothers left in the tontine. Both are elderly and couldn’t care less about collecting the money, yet their heirs do, and will do anything to win. The plot gets even crazier when one of the brothers is believed to have died in a train wreck, and the heirs try to conceal his apparent corpse to keep the tontine intact. “It’s not a dark show, but there’s some dead body humor. It’s a white/black comedy,” Goldstein Grant said. “Everyone in this show is a terrible person, but you love them anyhow.” After composing all of the music on piano, Goldstein Grant handed her work over to Barret Germain, a Schenectady-based tuba player and musical director at the Trinity Presbyterian Church in Scotia. Germain became the album’s musical director and orchestrator, overseeing the execution of the music and recordings and adapting Goldstein Grant’s piano parts into a 13-piece orchestra. “I would call it an exciting challenge,” Germain said. “It was definitely a challenge to take a piano score and expand it and still fit into Kit’s idea of what she wanted the musical to be … pretty much Victorian England style, and make that work with the instruments we used.” Germain said they used a string quartet as well as brass and woodwinds, using percussion sparingly to “fit the late 19th century style.” Once the music was completed, they found many veterans of Capital District musical theater. The lead role was performed by New York City-based singer/actor John Anthony Lopez, originally from Schenectady, and supporting roles include Marc Andrzejewski, Joe Phillips, Laura Darling and Bill Hickman, under the vocal direction of Maria Elmer. Recordings were done over just a weekend at local studios Sand Creek Recording in Colonie and Cotton Hill Studio in Albany and were mixed at The Bomb Shelter in Albany. With the album completed, Goldstein Grant plans to send it out to theater companies, music reviewers and even the Robert Louis Stevenson Silverado Museum in California. The CD will also be available on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and CD Baby. A production for the musical is already in the works and will be performed in the spring at Proctors’ Fenimore Gallery as part of the Classic Theater Guild’s 2013-14 season. After years of hard work and dedication, Goldstein Grant is excited to see where the musical goes and how it is performed. “It’ll be most fun for people if they go ahead and read the book to see where the songs all go with the story. It’s not all laugh out loud funny, some of it’s more subtle humor,” Goldstein Grant said. “I think they can look for a good time. If you like musicals, I think you’ll enjoy it.” The album’s release party is open to the public and will be held on Saturday, Aug. 17 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Professor Java’s Coffee Sanctuary in Colonie. Free desserts and coffee will be provided, and selected songs will be performed live by members of the cast.