The playwright herself grew up in the suburbs of Phoenix, the product of an interracial marriage. Bhira is from Yuba City in Northern California and Ms. Backhaus’s father, Andrew, is a German-Catholic from New Jersey.

“My first reaction when I read it was, ‘Wow, you’ve been listening,’ ” Bhira said in a phone interview.

Ms. Backhaus’s parents never urged her to marry a Punjabi man. In fact, it was Bhira (now a novelist and English professor) who was ostracized for marrying outside the community, to a man she met in college. (Andrew works at a Tempe-based company that specializes in high-altitude training.)

Bhira’s father was among the earliest Punjabi immigrants to the United States. Neither parent met her husband until Bhira’s mother was dying of breast cancer. Her father died 11 months later, never having explicitly forgiven her.

Bhira wanted a different experience for her own daughter.

“She always said, ‘You can do whatever you want to do. You can believe whatever you want to do. We’ll support you in that,’” Ms. Backhaus said of her mother.

Her parents encouraged her to pursue theater at New York University and never pressured her to attend engineering or medical school, a story many first generation South Asian children know well — and is winked at in the play.