This weekend, student-directed drama returns to the stage at the Black Box Theatre, on the campus of Riverbank High School.

‘Almost, Maine’ will be presented at 7 p.m. on both Friday, Feb. 19 and Saturday, Feb. 20.

It’s a composition of nine short plays by John Cariani. The dramas explore love and loss in a remote, mythical almost-town called Almost, Maine. It originally premiered at the Portland Stage Company in Portland, Maine in 2004, reportedly breaking box office records there and garnering critical acclaim.

There are eleven short scenes, including a Prologue, continuing into an Interlope and Epilogue, with names like Her Heart, Sad and Glad, This Hurts, Getting It Back, They Fell, Where It Went, Story of Hope and Seeing the Thing.

‘Almost, Maine’ opened Off-Broadway in 2006, but closed a month later. It is now listed as the most produced play in North American high schools, recently supplanting Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, according to Playbill magazine, for school years 2009-10 and 2011-12.

A New York review referred to the play as a whimsical approach to both the joys and pitfalls of romance.

The two-day run, Feb. 19 and 20, might be the perfect cap to a Valentine’s Day celebration.