Black Sheep Players will have a special guest when it stages the drama “N” this weekend in Sharon, Pa.

Playwright David Alex is scheduled to attend the Saturday evening and Sunday matinee performances, and he’ll do a post-show Q&A Saturday.

Black Sheep co-founder Maria Ackley said she discovered the play from the playwright himself.

“In January, I received an email out of the blue (from Alex),” she said. “He had been doing research online to find smaller theaters to do his play that had premiered in the Chicago area in 2019. He saw we’d done a couple of rather challenging shows, ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ and ‘Doubt.’ His thought was, if they’re doing those kind of shows, they might be interested (in ‘N’).

“He sent it to me, I read it and told him, ‘Yes, I think we could do this.'”

Alex has written several one-act and full-length plays. He’s received three awards from the Illinois Arts Council and a grant from the Pilgrim Foundation. He’s served as secretary for both the Chicago Alliance for Playwrights and the Illinois Theatre Association.

“N” is a three-character play about what is usually referred to as “the N-word.” It tells the story of Eddy, a struggling actor who takes a job as a caregiver for Mrs. Page. She is an older African-American woman who is socially and politically conservative. Eddy is young, Caucasian and liberal.

When he gets an acting role that requires him to use the N word, he initially refuses, but his relationship with Mrs. Page, an encounter with a childhood friend and his fear that his apprehension could cost him future acting roles raises a range of topics.

“It’s a show about social issues that are entrenched in today’s news,” Ackley said. “It deals with race, age, class.”

Black Sheep will be the second theater in the country to stage “N,” and it is being billed as the northeast United States premiere. Three additional theaters will stage the show in 2021-22.

Ackley invited Leon Avery III to direct the show.

“Leon told me, ‘As an African-American, I can bring insights into the show that are personal to me and really make that resonate truthfully,'” she said. “With Leon’s acceptance and willingness to do the show, it just fit what we do. We like to pick shows that are challenging for actors, and we want people to think about them.”

Tonya Polk plays Mrs. Page, and Brandyn D. Blackwell plays Eddy’s friend DeShawn. Black Sheep ended up double casting the role of Eddy after Garrett Gagnon submitted an online audition. Gagnon was touring with Missoula Children’s Theatre and was looking at auditions near Pittsburgh on broadway world.com, because the tour was coming through Pennsylvania. That’s where he saw the Black Sheep audition notice.

“He sent a virtual audition,” Ackley said. “We watched it, and he was very, very good. He made arrangements to come and be in the show when the tour was over.”

However, he wouldn’t be available until late August, so they also cast Jacob Elliott as his understudy, so Polk would have someone to work with in early rehearsals.

“Nine of the 10 scenes are just the two of them,” Ackley said.

Gagnon will do the three evening performances, and Elliott will do the Sunday matinee.

“The line load between these two characters is immense,” she said. “A chemistry has emerged, and they’ve really gotten to know each other on the set and off the stage to get the lines down.”

If you go …

WHAT: Black Sheep Players — “N”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: First Presbyterian Church, 600 E. State St., Sharon, Pa.

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $15 and available online at blacksheepplayers.com.