Bainbridge-based playwright and composer Paul Lewis’ latest work, “The Hours of Life,” will open for a limited 12-performance engagement in Seattle beginning Friday, Dec. 5 at Seattle Center.

“The Hours of Life,” a musical play, is a historical fiction inspired by actual events surrounding an obsessive love affair between 19th century poet Sarah Helen Whitman and Edgar AllanPoe.

Though he’s better known for his dark side, Edgar Allan Poe’s tender matters of the heart are unearthed in Lewis’ new show, where a fateful encounter casts its shadow and threatens to destroy the poets’ future together. Their tale of forbidden romance is set at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and features the unlikely combination of an Austrian inventor, mechanical Turks and Bavarian grand chess masters.

The show is directed by Corey D. McDaniel of “The Wild Party” fame, a show which won the Gregory Award for “Outstanding Musical Production” and Gypsy Rose Lee Award for “Excellence in Musical Production and Direction.”

The initial staged reading of this musical, held in June 2011 at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, received an extraordinarily positive response from an over-capacity audience.

There will be a “pay what you can” preview at 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 4.

There will be regular performances at 8 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 5, Saturday, Dec. 6, Tuesday, Dec. 9 (Industry Night), Wednesday, Dec. 10, Thursday, Dec. 11, Friday, Dec. 12 and Saturday, Dec. 14.

There will be 2 p.m. matinees on Saturday, Dec. 6 and 13 as well as Sunday, Dec. 7 and 14.

The show is being staged at the Cornish Studio Theatre at Seattle Center, formerly the Intiman Blackbox (201 Mercer St.).

Tickets are on sale now, the cost is $22 per person and $14 for seniors, students and military members.

Visit www.brownpapertickets.com/event/858076 or www.theatre22.org for tickets and more information.