"I try to move around the landscape of human limitations and ask 'Can you say "yes" to life now? … Can you say "yes" now? …' " he says. " 'When is life no longer worth the struggle?' I believe that it's always worth the struggle, and I try to share my investigation with the audience."

Wright, 37, has written 10 or so plays, one of which, The Pavilion, is appearing on theater schedules nationwide. It makes its North Texas premiere at Circle Theatre this week. He'll soon make his New York premiere with the 9-11 play Recent Tragic Events, opening off-Broadway this spring.

Wright recently began a gig as one of seven writers for the third season of HBO's Six Feet Under. He penned the forthcoming seventh and 12th episodes. He's also a member of the alt-pop band Kangaroo, which releases its next album, Skyscraper Spaceship, next month.

In The Pavilion, two former high school sweethearts (played by Trey Walpole and Michelle Michael) cross paths at their 20-year reunion. A narrator (Kevin Scott Keating) plays about 20 other characters, of both sexes, from their past.

Because of the narrator device and the play's theme of looking at the past, The Pavilion has been likened to Thornton Wilder's Our Town. It's a comparison Wright cherishes.

"I share some of Wilder's world views," he says. "I appreciate how he is able to make life meaningful without lying about limits.

"The only place I part ways with Wilder is in a famous line in Our Town where Emily asks the Stage Manager, 'Do human beings ever realize life while they live it?' He answers 'No . . . The saints and poets maybe -- they do some.' I think the answer should have been 'No,' period."

"Deep down, Wilder was very elitist. I don't hold artists and philosophers in that high regard. I don't think anyone really knows what this is that we're going through, we just know how it feels."

The Pavilion previews Wednesday and Thursday ($10), opens March 21 and runs through April 19 ($15-$25). Performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 4 and 8:30 p.m. Saturdays (no matinee March 22). Half-price student tickets are available a half-hour before curtain.

The Pavilion

Wednesday through April 19

Circle Theatre

230 W. Fourth St. Fort Worth