Artistic Director of Up Theater Company, James Bosley brings his childhood neighborhood, Broad Channel, to Washington Heights in a biting new drama about a struggling blue collar family who find out that a treasured painting that's been in their living room for generations is actually worth millions of dollars... but it might have been stolen from an Holocaust victim.

StageBuddy spoke with the playwright about his inspiration for "Broad Channel", its characters, and what it means to remember the past.

StageBuddy: What was your inspiration behind this play?

James Bosley: I used to live in a place called Broad Channel; my family lives there still.  I always thought it was a great place to set a play.  It's an island in Queens between JFK Airport and Brooklyn, Jamaica Bay.  It's a patriotic, blue collar working class neighborhood -- and I had that idea as a setting but didn't have a story. Completely separately, years later I read a story about a piece of work that was found and returned to its rightful owner, who was a grandchild of a Holocaust victim; and the story was about their joy in it being returned and the process of finding it and the issue of art being repatriated.  All [the article] said was that it was found in an American G.I.'s home, and it got me thinking: 'I wonder what happened in that home where something that had been kept since World War II is taken away? Under what circumstances?'  I had no idea. And I started thinking about that as a play, and I thought this might be the story I'm looking for to superimpose on Broad Channel. And once I had that idea, I had the play.

SB: Can you tell me a bit about the lifespan of the play?

JB: I wrote the play a few years ago, and it had been a finalist at several competitions around the country, as well as on the Artistic Director's desk of some of the moderate to larger Off-Broadway houses in New York.  It never got over the hump to get a major production or win some awards; it was runner up a few times.

Not that I want to do all of my plays, but my fellow members said, "Let's do 'Broad Chanel'"; and that's how we started working on it.  In the rehearsal process we've come upon changes -- we get re-inspired.  I brought some of the actors to Broad Channel to visit my family.  It now takes place on the eve of Sandy.

SB: What character would you say you're most like in "Broad Channel"?

JB: It's a family of mother, father and teenage son, and I guess there's a little bit of me in all those.  I guess the father, Richie, who is based on my cousin in some ways, he is more me than the others.  But I was that kid when I was 18, clueless yet knowing something is out there.  The mother, Smitty, who is kind of a wild card and drinks a little too much beer and can go off the edge -- I've done that once or twice in my life.  But I would say Richie is close to me?

SB: How would the world be different if we forgave each other and forgot about the past?

JB: I think about Native Americans and what do they deserve, can we give the land back to them?  When is it over for someone? I think of the generation of WWII -- those who fought it are about 90 years old now, and if their children survived they would be my age, and their grandchildren are now coming into adulthood. And I think the time will come when that will ultimately be forgotten.  The past keeps on marching on and each flip of the card of a new era means there's one stacked on top of the previous.

SB: Your characters in the play often describe the painting as their personal angel looking over them.  Do you have a personal angel that watches over you and your family?

JB: I never thought so, but my mother died 25 years ago and she's been looking over the family, or at least we feel that.  My daughter was born almost 13 years ago now, and when she was first born, the hospital sent a home-care lady over to examine Grace, and she said, "There is a spirit in this little girl," and I just knew it was my mother.  That's the family myth and sometimes it seems to be so.

(This interview has been edited and condensed.)