Playwright David MacGregor admits there are elements of a fable in his comedy “Consider the Oyster,” and it’s not only because the show depicts the Detroit Lions as a Super Bowl-winning football team.

MacGregor, a resident playwright for the Purple Rose Theatre Company based in Chelsea, Mich., said the piece explores questions of love, fidelity and devotion in fantastical ways. The comedy follows the fallout after a newly engaged man unexpectedly changes genders because of a new bone treatment involving oyster shells. The procedure messes with his DNA and our protagonist is forced to re-examine his relationship with his fiancée. The show debuted in Michigan in 2011 and will get its regional premiere during an upcoming run at the Aurora Fox theater.

We caught up with MacGregor to talk about his history with the Purple Rose company (a troupe co-founded by actor Jeff Daniels), the thematic intentions behind “Consider the Oyster” and the appeal of bringing the show to Aurora.

Aurora Sentinel: How did you get connected with the Purple Rose Theatre Company?

DAVID MACGREGOR: Fifteen years ago, they had heard that I was having plays produced in other parts of the country, and part of their mission statement is to promote Michigan writers … They basically asked me if I would consider writing plays for their company, and there’s been a relationship ever since then. I’ve got a really good relationship with them and their assistant director.

Do you have a pretty good relationship with Jeff Daniels as well?

At this point, basically, he and I go golfing in the summer when he’s off. But he’s got less involvement in the day-to-day operations of the theater.

Can you talk a bit about the origins of “Consider the Oyster”?

The play premiered in 2011 at the Purple Rose, and it was just a case of I’d read an article in which these French scientists were proposing the use of ground-up oyster shells to repair human bone. Whether for osteoporosis or a bad break, the idea is that you seed the damaged area with powdered oyster and it helps the bone heal better and stronger. It’s what’s called biomineralization.

I heard about that and I thought, ‘That’s really interesting.’ But somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that all oysters are born male and they all turn female. They are what are called sequential hermaphrodites. The two ideas clicked in my mind together. If someone has this procedure done, the ground-up oyster shells used in them could ostensibly affect their DNA. Then what happens to oysters happens to a young man who’s just newly engaged. He’s forced to change into a woman, and not because he wants to.

Do you have a background in biology, or is that just a random fact about oysters you had stored away?

I read a lot of stuff. It’s a case of voracious curiosity.

With that basic plot structure in mind, what themes were you able to tackle?

At its heart, it’s a comedy. It’s supposed to be funny. But what it really is about, it’s a play that’s about, ‘What does it mean to love another person?’ This is the fairy tale end of it, but when you’re in love with somebody, people change. They get older. They lose their money. They get sick. They discover they’re gay.

An acting friend of mine had his wife of nine years come home one day and say, ‘I’m a Muslim now, and we can no longer be married.’

To me, that’s the interesting thing that the play poses … If the person that you love changes — and in the play it’s an extreme example of someone changing a gender — but what is it that you actually love about another person? To me, that’s an interesting question worth exploring and trying to answer.

In one of the descriptions I read about the play, there was a warning about adult situations, language and the prospect that the Detroit Lions were actually good at football.

That’s the most disturbing thing about the play.

Because the play premiered in Michigan, I knew that audience would be really responsive to it. We got the Detroit Lions announcers to announce the opening. It opens with the Lions winning the Super Bowl, which tells you right away that it’s a fairy tale. It tells you it’s a fable … The Detroit Lions have won one playoff game in my lifetime.

It’s in the course of re-enacting the winning field goal that the protagonist shatters his feet. So, the play really hits the ground running in that respect.

Before this production at the Fox, has it been performed outside of Michigan?

No, this is the second production. They say that that’s always the hardest production to get. Everybody wants to do a world premiere, right? And after a few places produce it, people will say, ‘This is good enough to keep doing it.’

What appealed to you about the Aurora Fox as a place to have the second showing?

Certainly, there’s the appeal of the space itself — a big, old ex-movie palace. I saw some images of it online, and it’s just a really interesting space. You’re always interested to see how your work is going to translate outside of the original space it was originally conceived in.

Charlie has been really good about trying to do new and eclectic material that’s not going to be so familiar to people … It’s the mindset that, yeah, you could do the all-female version of “The Odd Couple,” you could do “King Lear,” you could just do the same kind of museum pieces over and over and over. But they’re trying to keep theater relevant. And there are playwrights, believe it or not, who are not dead.

Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com or 720-449-9707