Homeless people, compassion and human dignity are the major topics of “The Ave.,” a new play written by Maple Valley resident Ed Corrigan.

It is scheduled to open at the Maple Valley Creative Arts Center Aug. 18. The play is based on a poem by the same name Corrigan wrote, which was a finalist in the Seattle Times 2011 Poetry Contest.

The director will be Melanie Studley. Malorie Spreen will be the stage manager. Playing the “Dream Spirit” will be Becky Rappin. All three are Maple Valley residents.

The play will open at 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 18, 19, 20, 25 and 26. Tickets are $12. The money will be used to cover the production costs and any additional revenue generated will help support the Creative Arts Council.

Corrigan, a steel distributor, stated he wrote the poem after speaking with a homeless woman in Seattle and became interested in how she interacted not only with other homeless people, but, with ordinary residents who walk along the same streets.

“We were talking about what a day, good or bad, was for her,” he said. “She felt a good day was when people treated her with respect or dignity. That really stuck with me.”

This conversation inspired him to write a poem called “The Ave.” which he said took him two weeks to complete.

“I woke up and I was thinking about it all day,” he said.

Corrigan stated he was surprised by the resulting poem, which contains no reference to the woman he had met.

“When I write my poetry, I just have a seed of an idea, a word or phrase,” he said.

Additionally, he was unable to explain what inspired him to turn it into a play

“I had written a play before, and I had this urge,” he said. “I don’t know where it came from.”

With limited experience and knowledge on playwriting, Corrigan went online and took a tutorial several times before he wrote the first scene.

“By then,” he said, “it had become natural. It builds off of itself.”

To make the play as realistic as possible, Corrigan, who has a sociology degree, drew material from his trips to Seattle to help create believable characters. He also did research on homeless people when working on Cecilia’s background. His primary source was “The New Homelessness Revisited” by Barret A. Lee, Kimberly A. Tyler and James D. Wright.

One of his aims in the play is to explain how people end up living among the homeless, which Corrigan says is made up of a more diverse population than commonly believed. He also concluded there are a variety of reasons for why people live on the street, voluntarily or involuntarily.

“Everyone has a story,” he said.

Other issue he addresses is the treatment the homeless are given by those around them.

“You don’t need to earn dignity,” he said. “It’s a God-given right.”

Although the play hasn’t been performed yet, Corrigan stated he is already gotten strong reactions.

“People who had read the play tell me it’s changed their viewpoint,’ he said. “That’s not the point- it’s entertainment, but it’s an added bonus.”

The play concerns a young woman in her 20’s named Cecilia. Raised in Ritzville, a small town in Eastern Washington, she is a piano-prodigy as a child and lives in a highly-controlled environment in which all decisions were made for her by her parents.

“She had no time for anything,” said Corrgian.

Her proficiency allows her to attend the University of Washington on a scholarship, culminating in a solo recital with the Seattle Symphony.

At the end of her sophomore year, however, everything falls apart. Unable to endure the restrictions placed on her anymore, she rebels against her parents and the pre-planned life they had for her.

“She really goes off the rails,” Corrigan said.

Ultimately, she drops out of school and finds herself on University Avenue, where she chooses to live as a homeless person. It is then that the play begins right before the stock market crash of October 2008.

Cecilia’s internal struggle over expectations — that of her parents and those she places on herself — is the main crux of story.

“She’s tried her whole life to meet other’s expectations,” he said. “What happens when you acquiesce? There are consequences. What happens when you resist? There are consequences.”

Along with tensions between herself and students from the University, Cecilia clashes with George, a 40-year-old whom Corrigan describes as a “yuppie” and “materialistic.”

“When they first meet, he’s on his way to buy a $30,000 watch,” he said.

At first, their interactions are contentious and harsh. George is much like her parents in that he tells her how she should live her life. Likewise, she is critical of his materialistic values.

After the stock market crashes, George loses everything and is forced to live on the street along with Cecilia, who helps to take care of him.

While “The Ave.” treats the homeless sympathetically, it does not portray the lifestyle in any romantic light. This is reflected in Cecilia’s acknowledgement that her life on the street will inevitably lead to death.

“If you’re on the street very few people live past 50,” said Corrigan. “So she knows she has to get out of it. She realizes she needs to get out of the pattern.”

Though George is able to find redemption, Corrigan purposefully leaves much of Cecilia’s plight unresolved at the end in keeping with the realism he strove for. Such things in real life, he said, are not always concluded in a timely manner, if at all.

“If it were that simple, everything would be done by midnight,” he said.

Corrigan started to write the initial draft in December of 2010, and continued to rewrite it until he had a finished product of 12,000 words in May of this year.

When it came to searching for an organization to produce the play, Corrigan turned directly to the Maple Valley Creative Arts Council, where he knew he would had already established some rapport. After attending a play there, he began participating in the open mic by reading his poetry.

“The more I read, the more I wrote, the more productive I became,” he said. “It became a self-reenforcing process.”

So far, he said, “The Council is very supportive of my work.”

Corrigan emphasized the necessity for writers to spread the word on their work.

“If you don’t put it out there nothing happens,” he said.