Stephen Karam knows the world of high school kids. Perhaps that's because, at 29, he's not that far out of it himself, though he previously received very adult notices for his work on the play Columbinus, informed by the Columbine shootings, and Speech & Debate, a rousing success about high school misfits who form their own speech and debate club to expose a scandal. The latter, which inaugurated the new space at Roundabout Theatre Company in New York, opens jtonight at Curious Theatre Company. Rocky theater critic Lisa Bornstein recently spoke with Karam.

You co-wrote Columbinus with PJ Paparelli and received some good reviews when it ran at the New York Theatre Workshop. It even had a reading at Curious. How did you get involved in the project?

I was out working as an intern at the Utah Shakespeare Festival right after I graduated from Brown, and PJ was working at the Shakespeare Theatre in D.C. We went our separate ways, but he said, "Send me some of your plays." A friend had an aunt who lives in Denver. We went all over. One person would lead us to another person, so we spoke to some students. One contact at a church led us to Arapahoe High School. That drama director led us to two or three other people. It was one of those whirlwind experiences. At the time, I was 22. I was class of '98, those kids were class of '99. I think it struck a special chord with anyone who was in high school at that time. I ust remember seeing those images and being glued to the news and reading everything. As much as I didn't know these kids and I didn't know the community, you feel like you do.

Did spending so much time thinking about high school students lead you to write Speech & Debate?

I'm sure it did. We were zig-zagging across the country and meeting so many teenagers. So much of the play wasn't "The Littleton Project. " It was this merging of fact and fiction. While that was happening, I started writing my own fictional tale. Part of me knew that now was the time to do it, when I could write for kids of that age. It was a similar merging of fact and fiction from people I knew. I think it was satisfying to spin a very dark, dark comedy that was ultimately uplifting in tone.

It sounds like in New York you drew a number of teenagers to the theater, not always an easy task.

That's been the best part of it. When it was done in New York, any time you were in that theater, you would see 80-year-olds sitting next to 15-year-olds and kids from NYU. One of the actors was from Spring Awakening. In previews when nobody knew about (Speech & Debate), fans of the (Spring Awakening) actor came and saw the show, and it really spread like wildfire. What I'm most proud of is the fact that it's a play about young people, but it's not just for young people. It's a very adult play.

So how were your teen years?

I want to say pretty good. It had its ups and its downs. At the end of the day, I found my niche, I did speech and debate in high school, sort of wasn't even really talented enough of an actor to become a true drama nerd. I just fell into this odd club that certain people think I've just completely made up. Each of the 12 scenes (in Speech & Debate) is modeled after a different category (in speech and debate), and people say, 'What a strange concept. Where did you come up with this world?' And I explain to people that it's a really, really weird thing.

You're from Scranton, Pa. Between The Office and Joe Biden parodies on SNL, Scranton's not coming off very well.

That parody on Saturday Night Live I thought was dead-on: "Let me tell you, it's a hellhole." When you're in Scranton and you're growing up, it's the worst place to be and there's nothing to do but go to the mall, and now I'm at a place where I love going home. I feel privileged to have grown up in a place where everybody knows everybody.

You're doing better than most, if not all, playwrights your age, but you still work three days a week in a law firm?

I don't know that there's any other way for a playwright that doesn't have a trust fund. I feel pretty lucky and relieved to have found a job that I can manage. Before that, I had some real terrible jobs, where I had zero time to even write. I "temped" at every place imaginable. I wore a blue jumpsuit and would do marketing promotions for Citibank and hand out raffle tickets. The stuff you do when you're young enough to not know that you're torturing yourself. My boss is a subscriber to Roundabout and he came in and said, "There's a picture of you in the subscriber magazine." I think a part of him does think when he passes me everyday, "Why are you still here?"

Speech & Debate

* When and where: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays (no show Nov. 2 or 27), through Dec. 13, Curious Theatre Company, 1080 Acoma St.

* Cost: $17 to $34

* Information: 303-623-0524