David Robert May and Kerr Seth Lordygan in "Posing Strap Pirates"

In the late 1990s, I faced a creative impasse. After penning a couple successful romantic comedies featuring fantasy elements and a good deal of direct address, I experimented with a realistic character study. The response, while not disastrous, was decidedly tepid.

So, when a producer called and asked if I had a play to fill a cancellation, I lied and told her one was nearly ready. I hastily conjured up a hopelessly bombastic Narrator and, before I knew it, was halfway through a parody of the gay pulp novels of the ’50s and ’60s — something I hadn’t even realized I’d been seriously considering.

Michael Van Duzer

These paperbacks, with their lurid covers, deliriously purple prose, and testosterone-drenched narratives cribbed from “B” movies, had fueled the erotic imagination of a generation of gay men before me. With titles like Summer in Sodom, Hollywood Homo,  Family Jewels and the singularly appropriate Blow the Man Down, the plots were fundamentally interchangeable. A young, innocent and impossibly handsome young man is thrown into an isolated, hyper-masculine milieu — prisoners, cowboys, sailors, fraternity brothers—name your fantasy. Abiding by the write-what-you-know dictum, I naturally chose pirates.

Though the plots were contrived and creaky, the heroes of these books were a new breed. Eschewing the fey stereotypes of the era, these men were quintessentially masculine and unabashedly sexually active with one another. Descriptive passages were sprinkled with perfunctory apologies for the characters’ “deviant desires,” but the men who peopled these novels never sought forgiveness. These anonymous authors were inadvertently inventing a same-sex mythology, which would blossom in ways they couldn’t imagine as the gay rights movement matured.

Jonathan Lamer, David Robert May and Jeffrey Patrick Olson

Writing for characters with literally no subtext was extraordinarily liberating. The hoariest melodramatic clichés became plot points, dramatic logic was discarded and I found I could wallow in the linguistically heightened style of the novels. (It’s almost embarrassing to admit how easily I channeled the grandiloquence of that specific narrative voice.) I was also determined to avoid the trap of many parodies, which, I felt, overstayed their welcome. So I made sure the show played in just under an hour.

After the muted romanticism of the previous play, I knew that I wanted to be frank and funny about sex. But I was concerned that translating the hothouse eroticism of the originals into all-too-visible flesh would overshadow the comedy and, not incidentally, make the show difficult to cast. Then I recalled the era’s physique photos, with their ubiquitous posing straps, and realized that those images could become the visual vocabulary for the show.

David Robert May, Kerr Seth Lordygan, Paul Duffy, playwright Michael Van Duzer, Mason Hallberg, John Dickey, Jeffrey Patrick Olson and Jonathan Lamer

I had a blast directing the original 1997 production, which opened at the Hudson Theatre and transferred to the Celebration for a sold-out run. So did audiences who howled at its overwrought silliness. There were a couple out-of-town productions at Tucson’s One in Ten and Chicago’s Bailiwick, but it remained mostly a pleasant memory until I ran into Laura Lee Bahr and Kerr Seth Lordygan in the lobby of a theater. They were seeking shows to start a late-night series at the Eclectic Company and thought my pirates might fit the bill.

Laura read the play and was immediately hooked. Before you could say “shiver me timbers,” we had hoisted anchor and were sailing resolutely toward a November opening. I concentrated on revisions while Laura cast the show, and the chosen actors bravely faced the challenge of memorizing my intricately overindulgent dialog.

Jeffrey Patrick Olson and Jonathan Lamer

In anticipation of the November 11 opening, the Eclectic is abuzz with piratical activity. Posing straps are being fitted, homoerotic wrestling matches choreographed and a crow’s nest is under construction. But it’s much more than the elements I conceived so many years ago. It’s about Laura putting a distinctive directorial stamp on a show, which has always been filtered through a male perspective. And it’s about the performers realizing how lines, which were such a bitch to learn, become a comedic boon once they’re mastered.

For those readers who feel that raising the specters of mythology and civil rights in the history of a late-night spoof is overreaching, please understand that I’ve never lost sight of the fact that my initial impulse was simply to make an audience laugh. And I can assure you that, when these talented and pulchritudinous actors declaim their overripe lines and romp through their preposterous plot, in very little clothing, I will be able to relax — knowing that I have accomplished my task.

Posing Strap Pirates, produced by Laura Lee Bahr and Kerr Seth Lordygan for the Eclectic Company Theatre. Opens Nov. 11. Plays Thurs. 8 pm; Fri.-Sat. 10 pm. Through Dec. 10. Tickets: $15. The Eclectic Company Theatre, 5312 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Valley Village. 818-508-3003. www.eclecticcompanytheatre.org.

***All Posing Strap Pirates production photos by David Nott

Michael Van Duzer has had premieres of his plays at the Celebration (Mutual Frobnication, Hopeful Romantic) , the Hudson, Theatre Out (A History Of Gay Theatre In Something More Than 60 Seconds, Terror At The Trattoria) and the Production Company (Incitation to the Dance). This month he celebrates 27 years on the Western staff of Actors’ Equity Association.