When arranging our interview with 32-year-old playwright Stephen Karam, he suggested we meet him at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. It seemed like a strange request until we realized that the Criminal Justice building was also home to the theater where Karam was rehearsing Dark Sisters, a new experimental opera he wrote with composer Nico Muhly about the aftermath of a raid on a polygamous community. We settled into a spot overlooking a swimming pool (that makes sense too, right?) to chat about another production of Karam's, off-Broadway play Sons of the Prophet. The comedy/drama, which has just been extended through January 1st at the Laura Pels Theatre, follows the Douaihy clan; two gay brothers and their elderly uncle who are descended from the inspirational Lebanese author Kahlil Gibran and have since migrated to Eastern Pennsylvania. To say the family is having a bad year is an understatement. The boys' father has just died from the repercussions of a car accident caused by a talented high school football player, who receives little punishment for his actions so he can finish out the season. Meanwhile, 29-year-old Joseph (played with incredible sensitivity by former Beautiful Person Santino Fontana) is struggling with some major medical issues and his uncle is grappling with the idea of assisted living. Sons is one of the best plays we've seen in awhile. It reminded us a little of the Tony-winning, August Osage County, minus two hours. Here, the talented Karam who first gained attention in 2007 with his Roundabout-produced off-off Broadway play Speech and Debate, explains his writing process, his afghan collection and what makes him tear up at the theater.   

How long did it take you to write Sons of the Prophet? 

I started it in late 2007 or early 2008. I'm a slow writer; I'm not one of those writers who is going to have a play off Broadway every year. And then you put it up in such frenzy. It took three years to put something up in three weeks. You never know what kind of problems you're going to run into, but it was such a great relief to get to opening night and have it be, like, this thing that is living and breathing and what I had in my head.  

I cried -- kind of an embarrassing amount -- when I saw it. Joseph is a really heartbreaking character. Do you tear up when you watch it? 

You're forgetting that I've seen it probably 47 times, so, no. But, I certainly get very moved by watching certain people in the audience. When you have a show that is a comedy mixed with drama it's fun to watch the roller-coaster, and you can audibly tell if people are responding.  

What show makes you emotional?  

To be honest I still have not forgiven [director] Stephen Daldry. When Billy Elliot pulls out that letter... 

You're gay and grew up in small-town Pennsylvania. Pretty similar to Joseph in this play. Is it autobiographical?  

There is no clean answer to that, and I'm not being evasive. There's a line in the play that says, 'Any time you try to put the truth on paper you get a form of fiction.' For me, both sides of that are true in that all of it's deeply personal. I can't write a play unless it's deeply personal. It's not an autobiography but, at the same time, I did grow up in Eastern Pennsylvania; I did work in book publishing for a year; I am half Lebanese; my grandfather was born in Lebanon. So it's a list of specific, random things going on but in the course of making a play even the facts gets bent in so many different ways. Even the stuff that's true like, I do have a younger brother, but he is not gay; I did grow up across the street from the Douaihys, the Douaihys were sisters who were both lesbians. We went to high school together. 

Do they know about the play? 

Yes, I'm still friends with them. Christa's wedding announcement was in the New York Times, so I was able to show the cast the Douaihy wedding. Everyone was like, 'We're glad there is some Douaihy that's happy!'  

I'm from Ohio and I have to say I thought the set , especially the mismatched afghans, was a very accurate portrayal of Midwestern suburban decor! 

I still have my grandmother's afghan [in my apartment]. I have friends who went to private schools and are from New York, who'll just be like, 'What is happening here?' and I'm like 'What's wrong with it?' Just when I think I've gotten some version of classy it's like -- you can't. My apartment is not going to be featured in Architectural Digest.

Were you exposed to a lot of theater in Scranton?  

Theater became a growing interest as I discovered it, but because of my very sexy upbringing and the public schools I went to, there wasn't a whole lot going on. I wasn't taken to Shakespeare as a young child. My first play-going experiences were kind of let downs. We went on a school field trip to New York and my first Broadway show was Phantom of the Opera. I was so excited by it. I did all this reading, I listened to the cast album and when I went to see it I felt like the people acting in it were so bored -- they were obviously the fourteenth replacement cast.  

So Andrew Lloyd Webber didn't change your life? 

No, I didn't have one of those, "and Phantom of the Opera made me want to become a playwright" moments. I actually walked out going 'wah wah.' But I also learned from that experience -- going into high school I thought that Broadway was one theater, and that all the different shows just rotated in it. But my parents have been very supportive of me being interested in the arts even though they didn't know what that was about. There isn't another artist in the family.  

Do you have a day job? 

I had a day job up until a few months ago. I worked as a legal assistant at a law firm for seven years. I quit because I couldn't open Sons of the Prophet in Boston with my remaining vacation days, which was what I had been doing for all my other productions. So, I've been this quote unquote playwright but haven't been able to support myself.   

Do you think you'll be able to not have a day job for awhile, now? 

I think for a little bit, yeah. And then I think I will have to get another one or scramble to see if I can get work in TV and film but, like I said, I'm a slow writer. I'm not going to be the writer who can write a play while working in TV full time. Playwriting is what I want to keep doing, so as long as I can keep supporting myself doing that I will. After that, it's just a giant question mark.  I think, like any other artist, I hope that this lasts for a long time. But, having never not been in this position, I'm certainly not expecting it to last very long.

Stephen Karam photograph by Joanna Eldredge Morrissey