A play some are calling a modern-day “Romeo and Juliet” set in Berwyn, “The Ascension of Carlotta,” opens this weekend, kicking off the first season of the city’s new professional theater.

Directed by 16th Street Theater Artistic Director and Berwyn resident Ann Filmer and the brainchild of Riverside resident and playwright Will Dunne, “Carlotta” is a world premiere for the 16th Street Theater and will run there through Sunday, May 4.

“I’ve never heard of a play that’s set in Berwyn before, so I think that’s really special, specifically for Berwyn residents,” Filmer said. “It’s Berwyn as a metaphor for any city that’s right next door to an international city like Chicago. It’s about the lowered self-esteem of the people that live in that city, when you’re right next door to greatness, and that’s something we all come up against.”

Dunne said despite the local tie, the play explores universal themes.

“The play focuses, not unlike ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ on two characters from very different backgrounds coming together and falling in love,” Dunne said. “The question is whether they can survive the clash between the two different worlds they come from ... whether or not any of us can rise above the hand we’re dealt when we’re born into a certain culture, family or genetics.”

Dunne said a recent trend involves plays produced by local writers about local people. Dunne, who grew up in Riverside and since a stint in California has lived here for the past three years, said he wrote about what he knew — the neighboring community of Berwyn.

“I’ve never seen a play about people in Berwyn and I thought that would be an interesting world to explore, somewhere between a big town and small city,” Dunne said. “When I sat down to write, I got in a certain frame of mind to think about the world I was in now and who populated it and what that was like. I used that place as a starting point.”

Filmer first came into contact with the script just as she was moving to Berwyn one year ago, when she directed a reading of the play at the Chicago Dramatists, a theater at which Dunne is a resident playwright. Filmer and Dunne agree the play fulfills a purpose of the Berwyn theater: to serve as a conversation starter and forum for intellectual discourse and debate within the community.

“My hope is that people will come to the theater and have a good time and also be stimulated into some interesting thoughts,” Dunne said. “It’s a comedy, but it’s what I would call a serious comedy that explores the serious ideas beneath the humor. It’s not mindless, and more thought-provoking.”

Filmer said a line from the play — “I’m from a different Berwyn than you are; there are lots of Berwyns in this town” — encapsulates well the character of the city at large.

“The three characters in the play that live in Berwyn all represent a different type of world view,” she said. “Berwyn doesn’t represent any single thing.”