Hot off the front pages—well, at least the arts pages—is a story that, at least in spirit, resembles Michael Hollinger's new play, Opus, a world premiere at the Arden Theatre. In 2000, the real-life Audubon String Quartet dismissed its first violinist because of incompatibility. The man sued and won, as the judge apparently felt that all decisions in a string quartet must be reached unanimously. The remaining colleagues were temporarily forced to give up their name and forfeit their valuable instruments, leaving the three players devastated emotionally and financially. Hollinger's play, meanwhile, is about a string quartet in crisis as it replaces its violist on the eve of a televised White House concert. The connections run deeper than the surface, back to the playwright's roots in classical performance.

The Audubon was founded in Pennsylvania in 1974, and achieved international recognition. Special appearances included a performance at the White House, and 26 years in residence at the Music at Gretna (Pa.) Festival. The local playwright, just turned 44, is a violist himself who once actually sat in with the Audubon. As a teenager, Hollinger attended an orchestra festival for high school musicians at Elizabethtown College in Central Pennsylvania, where the Audubon Quartet was in residence. This was only a short distance from York, where he grew up. "Hearing me and my friends playing chamber music," Hollinger says, "the Audubon invited us to join them in reading through the Mendelssohn Octet. It was a seminal experience for me."

Hollinger had already decided to write a chamber music play when he heard about the controversy with the Audubon, so while there are some parallels in the plot, the play is fiction. The Opus cast is composed of professional actors, not trained musicians; stylized choreography is used to represent the playing. The Addison quartet from Curtis Institute supplies the actual music (via pre-recorded tape), which includes Beethoven, Bartok and a bit of "Hail to the Chief."

Professionally trained at the Oberlin Conservatory, Hollinger gave up playing music at age 22 and made a career in theater instead. As a kid, he acted in plays and built sets at the Little Theatre in York. "I think my experiences there gave me a solid grounding in the mechanics of the stage—that is, the sense of people interacting in space rather than on a page or movie screen—and a visceral understanding of the stage's relationship to the audience."

While studying instrumental music at Oberlin he wrote and produced one-acts and eventually a full-length musical. After graduation he put down his instrument and went on the road as an actor and writer with a children's theater company. Later he entered grad school for theater at Villanova. His thesis project was a solo show, which he wrote, directed and performed, and which won a fellowship from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He met actress Megan Bellwoar in Pippin at Villanova, directed by Father Peter Donohue, who has just been named president of Villanova. Father Donohue also married the couple.

After getting his masters degree, Hollinger was hired by Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays as literary manager and dramaturg. "It was a great training ground for an aspiring playwright," he says, "reading thousands of scripts over the course of the next five years as well as working on dozens of new plays."

To supplement her income as an actress, Bellwoar took a job in 1994 as assistant to the Arden's producing artistic director, Terry Nolen. She gave her boss a copy of her husband's play, An Empty Plate in the Café Du Grand Boeuf. Nolen says, "I loved it and said I want to do it." That production was followed by Incorruptible (1996), Tiny Island (1997), Red Herring (2000) and Tooth and Claw (2004). Nolen says, "It's clear that all Michael's plays are very musical in terms of rhythm and the use of silences. I tell my casts, 'Follow the punctuation. Honor the rhythms—play the beats and pauses—and the play will come to life.'" Hollinger says he always writes his plays "with scripted beats and pauses, alternation between sections and an interplay of voices."

For 20 years Hollinger did not play his instrument and he did not keep in touch with the Audubon. But just last year he began to play viola again, privately, with a quartet near his home in Wyncote. He decided to write a personal, intimate play as a change of pace after his successful Red Herring and Tooth and Claw, both of which dealt with global issues and were set in exotic locales.

"After big metaphors about life and evolution, now I want to focus on small interactions," he says, "a chamber play, and it turns out to be about chamber music."

Opus, Thu.-Sat., Jan. 12-14, 8 p.m.; Sun., Jan. 15, 2 p.m.; Tue., Jan. 17, 7 p.m.; Wed., Jan. 18, 6:30 p.m., $27-$45, through March 5, Arden Theatre, 40 N. Second St., 215-922-1122, www.ardentheatre.org. The Arden's Young Professionals Circle will have a pre-show reception featuring guests from The Chamber Music Society, Thu., Feb. 17. The Arden will host College Night, Thu., Feb. 2, with $10 tickets for students.