A local playwright channels a production about TV tropes and short attention spans.

Two weeks before Same Stage, Different Channels opens at the Indoor Forest Theater in Carmel, the cast are rehearsing in a garage in Seaside. The stage is a stretch of concrete floor, with boxes, bikes and old furniture piled in the corners. At one point a running washing machine forces stage manager Zalissa Johnson to call for a line to be repeated.

“We need more local theater in the community,” says Erik Roycraft, who wrote and directed the play, pitched as a comedy. This play, presented as part of PacRep’s Community Voices series, is part of that effort.

“The idea is that someone is flipping channels. The play takes a satirical look at television, with jumbled monologues and scenes from different kinds of shows interrupted whenever someone changes the channel,” he adds.

In the world Roycraft has written, the concept of an actor barely exists. The characters know they’re being written, and they know the channel can change at any moment. Sometimes they dread it, sometimes they pray for it – and they don’t hesitate to comment on the writers deciding their fate.

In dark woods, a depressed detective and a bored mystery writer argue over who killed the victim at their feet – until the channel changes, landing on a sitcom couple facing an episode with no laughter. A moment later, a dying actress accepts that her character is being written off a soap. Fast forward: lovers trapped in a shallow romance, an arrogant explorer on a distant planet and a defendant smitten with his own attorney in a courtroom drama.

The play captures the existential panic of fictional characters trapped in a fictional world. Does the tree fall if no one’s watching? What happens when we look away? Does our performance matter at all? It’s a nod to a discussion opened by Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author.

It’s a comedy, but a dark one. The scenes stand apart, each monologue stuffed with the jargon of a news cycle. “Turn on the TV,” Roycraft says, “and you’ll hear about all of it.”

The cast of six includes Alanna Youngblood, Brian Sheffield, Mark Drumm, Holly Chiswell, Alyca Tanner and Roycraft himself. It’s a distinctly Kafkaesque existence, one where the scenes change with the click of a remote.

This article was modified on July 23. The previous version stated that Alyca Tanner, not Zalissa Johnson, is the stage manager for this project.

Same Stage, Different Channels 7:30pm Friday-Saturday, July 24-25; 2pm Sunday, July 26. Indoor Forest Theater, 707 Mountain View Ave., Carmel. $26. (831) 587-5901, pacrep.org.