ANN ARBOR–One of the things I am always fascinated by in the theater is why companies choose the plays they do.

Theatre Nova has been on a roll with some great and inspired selections in the last three years, but The Stone Witch isn’t one of them.

The actors do a mostly fine job of delivering on this play by Shem Bitterman, which had its premiere in New York earlier this year. So, it’s a good get to have it in Michigan so soon. But while the premise is interesting, the actual script, for me, doesn’t quite make us care enough about these characters to make a really good story.

Simon Grindberg (Dennis Kleinsmith) is a celebrated children’s book author and illustrator. But his next book is 12 years in the making. His editor, Clair (Diane Hill) hires a young, aspiring writer who shows some promise, Peter (Ethan Kankula) to act as an assistant to Grindberg to spark him. The goal is for Peter to push the author to deliver a 300-word book with pictures in time for Christmas.

What goes wrong with this story is hard to pin down. For one, though, some of the dialogue just seems stilted. Good dialogue should sound like people really talk. Also, Simon’s creative block seems to be variously explained by mental illness, alcoholism and World War 2 PTSD. Overlapping strands of these issues confuse the story and make it feel like a house of ill-fitting cardboard blocks. And then there is “The Stone Witch,” which appears as an apparition on a rear screen as if outside Grinberg’s window, and haunts and scares the author. That is the manifestation of whatever is really bugging Grindberg.

Kleinsmith has his arms firmly around the role. One is reminded, maybe, of a J.D. Salinger character, reclusive and haunted by his own past success. Diane Hill plays the corporate book editor with her usual aplomb. Ethan Kankula as Peter has good stage energy, but at times is victim to the playwright’s over-wrought dialogue.

The set design by Forrest Hejkal is a very good representation of a writer’s cabin cum office. I especially like the drafter’s table. The use of the rear screen, designed by Harper Wildern, is also effective in Theatre Nova’s intimate space, showing what Grinberg imagines is outside his window.

There is a fine line between creativity and madness. I think that is what Bitterman is going for in The Stone Witch. There is also a through-line, explored in many other plays and films, about what lengths a creative person will go to achieve initial success and fame.

But this script and story needs further tinkering to deliver on those themes in a way that does justice to the actual blood and sweat that goes into writing and creating original work.

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