Instead, the fiction he birthed, in the form of two characters - Curt, a cynical, manipulative acting coach, and fledgling young ingenue Anna - seemed to have a beating heart, even if the pump was blocked. "I wrote that first scene and didn't know what else would happen with them," says Minigan. The play stayed stalled for a few years.

But when audiences at a scene reading kept asking what happened next, Minigan found his motivation. He called a local Shakespearean theater company and was assigned a reading just six weeks later. What made that move so audacious is that he only had one scene - and just six weeks to find the play that followed. Minigan also had something of an in, a bit of emotional manipulation of his own: One of his former students at the theater company took his call.

Now his work has blossomed into "Breaking the Shakespeare Code," a taut relationship drama about a series of acting lessons that turn into emotional duels, fought by a director and actor hiding behind the flashing wit of Shakespearean prose. It's a story about how everyday internal failure marks an experienced, weary older man and a yearning, talented younger woman. And it's also a complicated look at the kind of tense entanglement that happens in real life but rarely onstage, about a relationship that may not be physically consummated, but still defines and reshapes the lives of both characters.

While some audiences have responsed to readings of the play along gender lines, the playwright says he based both characters on himself. He hopes he's made the characters authentic, but felt wounded when a current student responded to the play by saying: "Curt's a lot like you."

The play's subject - that it's set in a rehearsal room, and its characters are untangling the emotional subtext of The Bard's iambs - made it a "no-brainer" for the Utah Shakespearean Festival's new play-development series, says director Aaron Galligan-Stierle.

Beyond subject matter, there's the playwright's craft, which offers real heft to its sexy subject matter. Galligan-Stierle praises Minigan's taut, authentic dialogue. "He absolutely understands who these people are and gives you characters you actually care about," the director says.

Minigan's work is one of three plays in the annual series - under the grand title of "New American Playwrights Project" - which offers audiences the chance to see the work of emerging contemporary playwrights, "Shakespeares of the future," as festival founder Fred Adams puts it.

Other featured plays are Dan Trujillo's quirky, dark "Early Poe," about how death, disease, insanity and poetry obsess a talented, writerly teenager; and Richard A. Kalinosk's "The Thousand Pound Marriage," the story of how an upcoming vow-renewal ceremony cracks open the relationship of a college basketball coach and his English-professor wife.

Beyond the plays' subject matter, each offers the sure-handed approach of emerging playwrights, and audience members seeing the new works will hear the dialogue spoken by classically trained actors. That seems particularly appropriate for Minigan's play, which features company members Shelly Gaza ("Twelfth Night" and "King Lear") and Mic Matarrese ("Coriolanus," "King Lear" and "Twelfth Night").

"We have two actors who really understand Shakespeare, they're so well-trained, and they're doing it every night, and they're able to bring that knowledge to a play that's about his characters," says Galligan-Stierle, before voicing the earnest hope of dramaturgs and playwrights everywhere. "My real hope is someone comes along, sees the reading and says: 'I'm willing to produce this play.' "

Contemporary Shakespeares

* "BREAKING THE SHAKESPEARE CODE," "EARLY POE" and "THE THOUSAND-POUND MARRIAGE" will be presented as staged readings in Utah Shakespearean Festival's New American Playwrights Project in Cedar City. Readings are at 10:15 a.m. Thursdays and Fridays in USF's Auditorium Theatre through August 31. The works are aimed at adult audiences, are not appropriate for young children and may contain themes and language some might consider offensive.

* TICKETS ARE $8 each, or $20 for the three-play series ($10 students/$15 seniors); call 801-355-2787 or visit www.arttix.org.