I’ve enjoyed the questions I’ve received when telling Globe patrons that we’re doing a play called King James. No, it’s not about the monarch who sponsored the monumental English translation of the Bible. No, it’s not about James Brown, though he does have a great song called “King of Soul.” The title is actually a reference to LeBron James, the titan of basketball—and no, you don’t need to know anything about the game in order to enjoy the play.

The Globe has produced quite a few sports-themed shows. We’ve explored tennis, boxing, baseball, even track and field. Sports are fantastically interesting in the theatre. They are inherently dramatic: built on conflict between two sides, and suffused with emotion and high stakes. King James is a sports play… of sorts. Its four scenes correlate to a basketball game’s four quarters, and the subject of hoops is a constant throughout. But the play is less interested in sports per se, as a pastime or even as an obsession, than it is in sports as conduit to an even larger theme: friendship.

It’s surprising how few plays center on the institution of friendship, especially given how central it is to the human experience. Friendships feature in a million plays, of course, but I’d be hard-pressed to name a dozen in which the rich, complicated relationships between two pals is the primary concern. In this sense, Rajiv Joseph, tonight’s playwright, is doing something quite innovative and impressive. Matt and Shawn, his subjects, are very different men who have one thing in common: their love of LeBron and his team. This love bonds them, and somehow their shared passion for the Cleveland Cavaliers connects them and forges in them a deep fondness for each other. As their fortunes ebb and flow through family challenges, romantic turbulence, and career upheavals, the Cavs—and LeBron—lend them stability. But more, LeBron gives them a place to focus their emotions, a haven for all that’s swirling inside them, a safe and steady port in the storm of life. LeBron becomes a language they can speak, a way to express by proxy the intimacies and vulnerabilities that are otherwise too difficult, intimidating, or scary to risk sharing. Joseph’s technique is sophisticated in this way. The play’s surface is simple, everyday speech—a couple of guys talking sports and kibitzing about life—but that talk reveals big ideas about big things: masculinity, and America, and race, and success, and failure, and heartbreak, and trust. It’s a lovely and sneakily affecting piece of writing.

I’m very glad to welcome a lovely man to the Globe to stage it. Justin Emeka is from Ohio, maybe a half hour from LeBron’s Cleveland, where he teaches at the prestigious liberal arts academy Oberlin College. He’s become a close friend of the Globe over the past few years, working with me on Hamlet, participating in our Classical Directing Fellowship, holding two separate commissions for new work, and being a valued thought partner. His directing career is flourishing, and we’re lucky to have his talent, intelligence, and abundant warmth on our campus. Justin’s brought together a very talented group of designers and two extraordinary actors to tell this special story, and we’re grateful to them all for bringing this meaningful play to San Diego.

Thanks for coming. Enjoy the show.