Talking is hard. Not the small talk, or the Monday morning driving to work podcast talk, or the kind of talk you do with your pregnant coworker while microwaving leftovers, but real talk: The kind that requires an appropriate amount of eye contact, discomfort and maybe a long pause while you figure out how to say what you mean.

In the age of Instagram reels, retweets and Facebook beefs, we’ve gotten pretty good at avoiding hard conversations. Explaining the birds and the bees? Just send your kid a TikTok. Disagree with your neighbor’s politics? Leave a passive-aggressive comment on Nextdoor and mute them for life. Who needs nuance when you can go full caps lock?

But nuance is exactly what “The Conversation” is after. The new play, written by Boulder’s own Ami Dayan and co-presented by the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Humanities & the Arts, doesn’t tiptoe around the subject matter.

“The Conversation” takes on the conflict between Israel and Palestine and offers up an opportunity to do what many of us fear most: a chance to talk about it in person. It’s the first in a four-part series inspired by CU’s “Difficult Dialogues” event series, which is all about the kind of conversations that make our palms sweat a little.

The show hit the stage Thursday night and will be in production through May 31 at the Dairy Arts Center’s Carsen Theater, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder.

Tickets range from $15 to $30, with discounted rates for students, seniors and youth.

Each performance ends with a live post-show discussion, moderated by a rotating lineup of scholars, artists, and community members. Tickets can be purchased at thedairy.org.

Dayan, who was born and raised in Israel and served in an elite unit of the Israel Defense Forces, has lived in Boulder since 1999.

“My friends and family live there,” he said. “I am deeply concerned for the state’s safety and survival. By that I mean its physical survival, of course, but as importantly, its moral and spiritual survival.”

After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, Dayan said he rushed back to Israel to volunteer in the empty fields of rural communities near the Gaza border that had been targeted. When the ground invasion into Gaza began, he said, his perspective shifted.

“I failed to see the justification for the mass destruction and brutal killing of civilians in Gaza,” Dayan said. “Not the survival of the state of Israel, or its hostages living through hell in Hamas custody, but rather the survival of the extreme right-wing (Benjamin) Netanyahu government.”

Back in Boulder, Dayan launched “Standing for Humanity in Gaza and Israel,” a series of events blending art and dialogue that included an Israeli play, “How to Remain a Humanist after a Massacre in 17 Steps,” by Maya Arad Yassur (written just days after Oct. 7), poetry by esteemed Palestinian writers like Mahmoud Darwish, Zeina Azzam and Rafaat Alareer, and panel discussions with local Palestinians, Israelis, Jews, Muslims, journalists and scholars.

“We quickly learned there was a deep need in Colorado for these dialogues,” he said. “They simply weren’t happening anywhere else.”

“The Conversation” is an extension of that work, and a response to the overwhelming number of artists, panelists and audience members who participated and asked for more.

One of the biggest influences behind “The Conversation” came from outside of the theater world. Since 2019, CU Boulder’s Center for Humanities & the Arts has hosted “Difficult Dialogues,” a semi-regular lineup of community conversations that take on topics people often avoid. Events have covered everything from reparations to abortion and racism to antisemitism.

The premise is straightforward: Gather people with different perspectives, offer a topic no one knows how to talk about and ask them to speak honestly — not through debating, but more gently, through thoughtful exchange.

The events aren’t recorded, which makes it easier for attendees to voice what they think.

Dayan, who’s worked with CU’s center for years, said the program shaped both the content and the format of the play.

“Aside from my background, a huge influence about the vision behind the series came from the ‘Difficult Dialogues’ series,” he said. “Jennifer Ho, who leads the center, has been a guiding force.”

For the play, Dayan wanted to share something moving and tactile on stage that audiences could experience by using a dramatic structure rooted in character, emotion and conflict. From the beginning, he shared drafts of the play with longtime friend and collaborator Sergio Atallah, whose family, like Dayan’s, has been entangled in the roots of this conflict for generations.

Atallah, a Palestinian peace advocate, was clear from the outset that his contributions to the script would not sugarcoat the conflict.

“Transparency on this issue is essential,” Atallah said. “Our society has effectively banned empathy towards Palestinians and their narrative, which serves to dehumanize them. So challenging the myths that have fueled the genocide was a principal intention.”

Dayan welcomed the pushback.

“Sergio is an ally in various peace-promoting efforts,” he said. “We differ on things and can argue fiercely, but we never lose sight of each other’s humanity.”

The two traded revisions back and forth, cutting the parts that didn’t serve the larger conversation and fine-tuning the parts that did.

“I incorporated his input with deep gratitude,” Dayan said. “We came up with a draft we both have issues with portions of, and are happy about other portions. It indicated we are in the right zone.”

Atallah helped center the Palestinian experience while still focusing on dialogue.

“I hope Palestinian supporters realize the value of initiating a conversation with the other side,” he said. “Before we solve a conflict, we have to understand it.”

The result is a production that feels urgent without being didactic, according to actor Mark Collins.

“It’s not a bring-your-notebook-and-there-will-be-a-quiz kind of thing,” said Collins, who plays one of several characters embodying different perspectives on the conflict. “It’s combustible and passionate.”

The script was built from conversations with people who have deep, lived connections to the region.

“Ami actually solicited perspectives and real stories from several people who have long histories with and strong opinions about Israel and Palestine when he was writing the piece,” Collins said. Collins is also a freelance writer for Prairie Mountain Media.

“I don’t know if they are word-for-word, but many aspects of what he got from those folks are in the play.”

The show also invites audience participation, with opportunities to speak and respond woven into the performance. For Collins, that element was part of the draw.

“Someone with a typical middle-American sense of the struggle there — like I think I had — will get insight into both the urgency and the history of the whole Israel-Palestine situation,” he said. “And it certainly has been a learning experience.”

The cast also includes local actors Elise Collins (no relation to Mark Collins), Mel Schaffer, Julia Halaby and Sonny Zinn. Dayan stepped into a role late in the process, only after the team realized they needed him on stage.

Balancing the dual role of playwright and performer wasn’t exactly easy.

“When focused on the writing, I try to forget I am acting in it,” Dayan said. “And when acting, forget I wrote it.”

Director Bud Coleman brought an essential outside perspective. He pushed the ensemble to move away from dense historical exposition and instead center the emotional stakes, letting character and story carry the weight of the message.

“The Conversation” navigates topics that many spaces actively avoid: the events of Oct. 7, the ethics and consequences of war, the debate over one-state versus two-state solutions, American complicity and the rising tides of antisemitism and Islamophobia.

“I hope anyone with strong opinions or affiliations finds their perspective voiced, and also challenged,” Dayan said.

Atallah echoed the sentiment: “Before we solve a conflict, we have to understand it. No real peace is achieved without conversation.”

After this first installment of “The Conversation,” the group will tackle three more events with “The Immigration Conversation,” “The Abortion Conversation” and “The Emotional Impact of Politics Conversation.”