Like Louisa May Alcott’s character Jo March in “Little Women,” Mindi Dickstein grew up near Boston, writing and performing plays with her friends. Again like Jo, Ms. Dickstein later moved to New York to write. Whether the parallels are the stuff of coincidence or an indicator of destiny, Ms. Dickstein’s “Little Women” connection expanded when she became the lyricist for the Broadway adaptation of the book.

The 41-year-old brunette, who now lives on a lake in New Jersey, joined the production in May, 2000. “They were auditioning to replace the lyricist,” she said.

“Four different lyricists came in,” she said of the tryout. “I met them on a Thursday. They gave me a libretto [and] gave me music.” From there, she went off to compose a “spec song” (written with no guarantee that it would be used – or that she would be paid).”The song I wrote was ‘Astonishing,'” she said.

Those running the show chose “Astonishing,” which like the other three submissions, went before them anonymously, identified only by a letter of the alphabet. “They picked the song solely on the letter,” not knowing which lyricist had penned it, explained Ms. Dickstein.

How long did the selection process take? “A weekend,” Ms. Dickstein said. “I was doing it on a Monday,” she said of her new job. Responding to a look of incredulity, she said, “Yeah. It was very fast.”

One of a number of the production’s most memorable songs, “Astonishing” closes Act 1, and in it Jo expresses her ambition.

There’s a life that I am meant to lead,
Alive like nothing I have known…
I can feel it and it’s far from here.
A life of passion that pulls me from within.
A life that I am aching to begin.
There must be somewhere I can be
Astonishing.
Astonishing.

“Now they have a T-shirt” that reads “Astonishing,” Ms. Dickstein said. “As a lyricist you don’t really expect your song to become a T-shirt.”

Ms. Dickstein teaches at New York University’s Musical Theater Writing Program, where she earned her MFA in 1993. Winnie Holzman, who wrote the book for “Wicked,” is also an alumna, and the composer, writer, and lyricist of “Falsettos,” William Finn, is on the faculty.

Located in the East Village on Second Avenue between 6th and 7th streets, the school has a classroom bearing the name of one of the last century’s acclaimed lyricists, Yip Harburg, who conceived the words for “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and the other songs from “The Wizard of Oz.”

On a chilly Thursday afternoon, Ms. Dickstein sat at a sturdy wooden table in a borrowed office down the hall from the Harburg Room. She wore in head-to-toe black accessorized with lots of rings and bracelets. She launched into stories touching on fourth-grade playwriting efforts and an undergraduate switch from acting to playwriting, pointing out that it all was “a way to get out of regular classes.”

She recalled her first play, “The Case of the Missing Jewels,” “which I performed with my best friend,” whom she described as the granddaughter of “the famous mystery writer Ellery Queen.”

When asked about her pastimes, she paused and said, “I’ve never been asked that before.” Delighted to consider something new, she was not lost for words. “One of my favorite things to do is play Scrabble online.” Ms. Dickstein confessed that when it comes to Scrabble, “My boyfriend says I’m very competitive.” A second guilty pleasure: “I like to go to Las Vegas and gamble,” she disclosed.

Struck by the revelation, she exclaimed suddenly, “Competition and risk – two hallmarks of a theatrical life – and these are my two pastimes.”

Turning “Little Women” into a musical included determining, “what the song-moment needed to be, Ms. Dickstein said. “Jason [composer Jason Howland] and Allan Knee [book writer] and I – we would meet regularly. At our meetings, we would have a list of song moments to be written for.” For example, she said, “We knew there would be a song for Laurie when he meets up with Jo at the ball.”

In Ms. Dickstein’s song, “Take a Chance on Me,” Laurie pleads his case.

We could do a hundred things,
Do anything you please.
We could fly on golden wings
Across the seven seas.
I’ll bet we could get a camel through a needle
If you’ll take a chance on me

Which comes first, the music or the words? “Sometimes Jason would have music,” said Ms. Dickstein. And “I would take it away” and write a song. “He’s at the piano. I record it. You just want to get the melody.”

She must have had some musical background. “I did study violin in fourth grade,” Ms. Dickstein said. “I sang in the chorus. I can read music, can’t sight-sing. I’m musical but not a musician,” she concluded.

Although Ms. Dickstein became involved in the production in 2000, some lyrics only came off the press recently. When were they finished? “December/January this year,” she chortled. “It opened in January.” After the play had a run at Duke University in October, the collaborators “rewrote two songs,” Ms. Dickstein said. “Our Finest Dreams” was revised from a musical perspective.

Another song, “‘Five Forever’ used to be about Jo forgiving Amy, [but it became] more important for storytelling that we bring Laurie into the family,” Ms. Dickstein said.

Marmee, played by Maureen McGovern, sings “Days of Plenty,” another of Ms. Dickstein’s songs, to Jo in Act 2 after the death of Beth. Ms. Dickstein explained that it was inspired by the “Harvest Time” chapter in Alcott’s novel. “Marmee says, ‘I think the Harvest will be good this year,'” Ms. Dickstein quoted. “It’s the last line of the novel. Okay, obviously you can’t sing the word ‘harvest.’ ‘Harvest’ sounded harder to sing then ‘Days of plenty.'”

“I reread the book in spring of 2000,” Ms. Dickstein said of Louisa May Alcott’s effort. “When I reread it, I was surprised by all the moralizing in it.”

Working on lyrics and trying to come up with her own words, she said, “Over the years, when I was writing [I’d say] ‘What did Louisa do?'”