Golden Kahumoku wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it. This was a rare chance to get honest feedback from two of the best, but he was feeling what many artists feel when they stand for a critique.

“I’m hesitant because this one means so much to me,” Kahumoku said. “I sent in two other songs. You can do anything to those. But I didn’t want anyone to touch this song.”

Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty smiled and nodded. They totally got it.

“I know this is your darling baby song, but you can make it better,” Ahrens told Kahumoku. After he sang, she told him what he needed to do. Kahumoku smiled and thanked her.

To call it a chance of a lifetime would be a cliche, and cliches don’t make it far in a writing workshop with a Tony Award-winning songwriting team considered the best of their generation. But it was a pretty special opportunity.

This past Saturday, six high school and college writers were selected to work with Ahrens and Flaherty, the team that wrote the Broadway musicals “Ragtime,” “Once on This Island” and “Seussical,” to name just a few of their projects. The writers’ visit to Hawaii, which included the by-invitation workshop and an evening performance open to the public, was through the Dramatists Guild Fund’s Traveling Masters program.

This is the first time the Traveling Masters program has come to Hawaii, said Castle High alumnus and Dramatists Guild Fund board member Dustin Sparks, who was beaming as he welcomed workshop participants to the black box theater at Punahou School. In addition to the students who presented their work, other theater students and teachers were invited to observe the workshop.

Roslyn Catracchia, a renowned Hawaii composer, helped to organize the workshop. “This is so priceless to me,” she said. “Hawaii is my home and where I feel most inspired, but those of us who work and teach here have to go far away and spend thousands of dollars for our education. These two are my favorite of all time, and they came to us.”

The workshop tone was a mix of honest evaluation of craft, helpful instruction and warm encouragement. Nobody’s darling baby song got trashed.

Flaherty marveled at the mature, meaty subjects the student writers had chosen — self-discovery, doubt, loneliness. It was easy to forget how young they were.

And then Carson Davis walked to the piano for his turn and said, “My co-writer couldn’t be here. She’s taking the SATs today.”

Wow. These kids really are young.

Each student had to present the context of the scene leading up to the song. Most played the piano, but Sean Choo played guitar as he sang a song he wrote about a young man wistfully reflecting on a broken relationship. It was a lovely song with lyrical gut-punch about how stupid the girl had been.

“Did you hear? Nobody was breathing in the audience during that one part,” Flaherty told him. “That was good!”

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.