Write what you know.

That’s age-old advice for writers, but is it a law? An inflexible decree? Should you only write about things you’ve experienced firsthand?

That question is key to “A Jumping-Off Point,” a new play by Inda Craig-Galvan receiving its area premiere at Minneapolis’ Jungle Theater, a week after its world premiere at Round House Theatre in the Washington, D.C., area. Craig-Galvan has crafted a script both funny and thought-provoking about who has the right to tell what stories and how American popular culture curates whose stories we hear.

Vinecia Coleman in the Jungle Theater’s “A Jumping-Off Point,” which runs April 20 – May 19, 2024 at the Minneapolis theater. (Lauren B. Photography / Jungle Theater)

It takes place behind the scenes in the world of television, or whatever you want to call the current landscape of streamed original video content. While writing a hit play has put our protagonist, a young Black woman named Leslie, in the spotlight, she’s moved on to a career as a TV writer and is about to become showrunner for a new HBO Max series.

That’s when Andrew re-enters her life. They were graduate students together in playwriting, and he shows up unexpectedly at Leslie’s apartment to confront her with the accusation that her hit play was lifted from a script he presented to their cohort. Complicating the issue is that Andrew is a white man who’s written a script about Black people in the Mississippi Delta (whom he’s learned about through a series of National Public Radio stories).

So, basically, Andrew and Leslie are accusing one another of breaking the rules of writing, he claiming she’s a plagiarist, she finding him guilty of cultural misappropriation.

It’s also a comedy, and quite a funny one at that. Craig-Galvan is a very clever writer who uses levity as a leavening agent in this tale of ethical quandaries. While the central conflict is between two people who take themselves very seriously, the playwright tosses a comical wild card betwixt them in Leslie’s wisecracking best friend, Miriam. It’s to Craig-Galvan’s credit that there’s no clear hero or villain in the battle between Leslie and Andrew. Both are nuanced and complex, admirable and flawed.

After a series of impressive performances in supporting roles at the Jungle and Penumbra Theatre, Vinecia Coleman has earned the opportunity to portray a layered lead role such as this, and her Leslie is invariably intriguing. The power dynamic between her and Gabriel Murphy’s socially awkward Andrew fluctuates in fascinating fashion, tugging the audience’s sympathies to and fro.

As the production progresses, I’m betting that Coleman and Murphy will ease into their characters with more naturalism, sloughing off some of their opening-night stiffness. Encountering no such issue is Ashawnti Sakina Ford. As Miriam, she takes the TV trope of the funny friend and makes it totally believable. And much welcome amid the tense confrontation at the story’s core.

The other star of the show is Daniel Allen’s visually stimulating set, which takes us from a lecture hall to a bright apartment to a TV writing room, all in several shades of yellow and gray and framed by phrases in big block lettering. Under Sha Cage’s direction, the Jungle’s production is driven by an electrifying friction. After its 90 intermission-less minutes, make time for a healthy post-show conversation about the questions it inspires.

‘A Jumping-Off Point’

When: Through May 19

Where: Jungle Theater, 2951 Lyndale Ave. S., Mpls.

Tickets: “Pay as you are,” but $98-$16 recommended; available at 612-822-7063 or jungletheater.org

Capsule: A thought-provoking comedy about who should tell what stories.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.