“A Safe, Familiar Place,” the latest show from Anthony Smith ’11, is already being buzzed up as a dark, scary, and thought-provoking piece of short theater. In an e-mail to The Argus, Smith answered some questions about the show, his process, and the experience of working with his cast. Starring Cordelia Blanchard ’12 and Howe Pearson ’12, and stage-managed by Tess Minter ’12, “A Safe, Familiar Place” runs Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m., with another show on Saturday at 4 p.m.

The Argus: Can you give us a teaser?
It’s a suspense thriller…I wanted to write a noir, but I wanted to reformulate it, sort of like what a noir would look like for the year 2010. We have our femme fatale, we have our dangerous stranger, our detective…except those character conventions are sort of adapted and warped.

A: Did you write this show? What was the writing process like?
AS: I spent four harrowing hours writing the initial structure and, realizing it sounded too much like a porno, spent the rest of my Christmas break revising.

A: Where did the inspiration come from?
AS: I have no idea where the inspiration for this came from. I wanted to write something funny, and I wrote the least funny thing.

A: What are the advantages/disadvantages of having only two actors?
AS: Only advantages. Theater is the most attractive medium for me because of how it caters to small stories. This is a small little sucker punch-two characters flirting and fucking up for under forty minutes.

A: What was the most challenging part?
AS: It’s such a challenging script…it’s challenging for actors to go to the dark place which the script requires…especially famously nice people like Cordelia Blanchard and Howe Pearson. But once we all got there, we started to do work that we’re all proud of. I’m always so proud.