When Carol Ann DeMarco, a 50-something actress, writer, and producer, tells people about her new creative project, a comedic mockumentary about pickleball, the response is nearly universal: enthusiasm, followed by a low moan. Why didn’t I think of that???

Who can blame them? It’s not often that one is blessed to conceive of such pure gold.

Alas, the TV show — “Pickleball is Life: Dill with It!’’ — is still in the pilot stage. But that seems a mere technicality. Pickleball, a craze of almost bizarre sweep, is ready for its close-up. And it is bursting onto the stage, the screen, and — need it even be said? — the world of reality TV.

And it’s no wonder. As every aspiring writer is taught, drama is conflict, and, in technical terms, pickleball has drama out the wazoo. In its brief but loud life, it has turned neighbor against neighbor, triggered lawsuits, ticked off tennis players, and caused so many rotator cuff and other injuries that Americans could reportedly spend as much as $500 million in costs tied to pickle injuries this year.

In other words, the shows must go on.

On the Outer Cape, fliers announcing the world premiere of “The Pickleball Wars’’ at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater on Aug. 9 have been calling out from community bulletin boards since mid-July.

The show is a satirical comedy that takes aim at pickleball’s shockingly divisive powers, and the topic has struck such a nerve that even before previews, its playwright was regularly approached by people on both sides of the divide.

“Some people are thanking me for writing a play they have not yet seen because they assume it will take the side of tennis players or pickleball opponents,’’ said Kevin Rice, the playwright and also the executive director of the Payomet Performing Arts Center, in Truro.

But other people, mainly pickleball fiends, think it’s a “pro’’ pickleball production. “They think we’re going to celebrate,’’ Rice said. “It’s bifurcated.’’

As for Rice himself, let’s just say that he certainly knows his audience. The main character is newly retired, hobbled by complications from hip replacement surgery and trying to write his first novel while enduring the irritating thwack, thwack, thwack from his neighbor’s pickleball court.

Rice was 10 minutes into his first pickleball lesson (a gift from his wife, a pickleball devotee) when he decided that: A. The sport would make a great vehicle for a play about global politics and B. He would have no time to play the actual game.

His spouse of 36 years is “OK’’ with his non-participation, he said as the premiere approached. “Her main interest is that ‘The Pickleball Wars’ in no way disparages pickleball or those who play it.’’

Rice, by the way, is not only an award-winning playwright, director, and actor. He also appears to be the second non-pickleball-playing dramatist married to a pickleball-obsessed wife to write a pickleball comedy.

The first husband is Emmy winner and Golden Globe and Tony nominee Jeff Daniels. His play, “Pickleball,’’ had its world premiere last fall, in Michigan.

It was described as a “wild comedy,’’ but Daniels doesn’t even pretend to be neutral about the sport. “To me, it’s like I’m drinking paint,’’ he said during a 2021 appearance on “Live with Kelly and Ryan.’’ “It’s like half-court basketball for elderly people.’’

Meanwhile, an Arizona firm, Pickleball Kingdom Productions, is holding a casting call for season one of a reality show called “Pickleball Paddle Battle.’’ (Note to aspiring pickleball heroes and villains: The entry window closes Aug. 16 at midnight.)

The show will be hosted by Clayton Echard, a TV “personality’’ whose credentials include an appearance as a contestant on Season 18 of “The Bachelorette’’ and as the star of Season 26 of “The Bachelor.’’

“The action will be fantastic,’’ the press release promises, “but the emotions will be unforgettable.’’

Pickleball may also play a supporting role in a spinoff of “The Bachelor’’ called “The Golden Bachelor.’’ Doing PR for the new show, here’s how the 71-year-old star described his ideal partner to “Good Morning America.’’

“Someone who maybe plays pickleball,’’ he said.

It’s probably too early to declare a star of stage and screen has been born, but as the online site Pickler noted in an August 2022 story, other sports have proved to be “fitting backdrops for American theater.’’

“ ‘Damn Yankees,’ a musical comedy centered on baseball, ran for more than a thousand performances on Broadway after it opened in 1955,’’ Pickler wrote.

So why not pickleball? Who wouldn’t love to see Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa as an aging pickleball star fighting to stay in the game? Or a new “Friday Night Lights’’ that focuses on the hopes and dreams of the high school pickleball team in a rural Texas town?

As for DeMarco, as she tries to get “Pickleball is Life: Dill with It!’’ off the ground, she confessed to a Globe reporter that she regularly — nervously — checks Hollywood publications hoping not to see news of a rival comic mockumentary.

But then she described an attitude adjustment that she also makes, an affirmation that sounds like it could be the mantra of the world’s most accepting sport.

“Carol Ann,’’ she says to herself, “it doesn’t matter if there is another pickleball film or show. You have unique gifts and that’s what life is about.’’

Beth Teitell can be reached at beth.teitell@globe.com. Follow her @bethteitell.