CHELSEA, MI–Growing old can be fraught with emotions, lost connections, financial insecurity, loneliness for many. In Jukebox for the Algonquin, now presenting at The Purple Rose Theatre, playwright Paul Stroili reminds us that there is humor to be found in our humanity, no matter the circumstance, as well.

Dennis (John Seibert), Johnny (Wallace Bridges) and Annie (Ruth Crawford) are residents of Placid Pines Senior Care Center in New York State where they are living out their years with no family nearby, though they have become one another’s family.

Johnny, from New York City, has been collecting money to buy a jukebox for the Algonquin Room at the Center, a corner of Placid Pines where few residents congregate except these characters. Dennis is gay and confined to a wheelchair. Johnny has a numerous ailments, including high blood pressure and Annie is going blind. Peg (Susan Angelo), who just bought an apartment in the independent living section of the place, has discovered her new friends in the “Longhorn” section of Placid Pines, which houses long-term-care residents.

The fundraising campaign for the jukebox is not going so well. Johnny has only collected $400 of what he will need for the $3,000 purchase. But Peg comes up with a scheme to close the gap that has the potential to land them all in trouble with the law.

Stroili’s writing is the star of this new play, though the superb ensemble of actors cast by Director Suzi Regan deserve lots of credit too for perfectly inhabiting the characters. Stroili, a veteran actor of the PRT stage, as well as many others, is emerging as a writer of stories that any actor should want to deliver. Why? Stroili has a gift for writing dialogue full of authentic detail that sounds real an human. And as an actor, he understands when dialogue sounds natural versus when it feels forced. Having written his own long-running one-man show, his writing is a gift to good actors.

He dials plenty of laughs into the situation of these aging friends living out their last years, tucked away in a forlorn corner of a dog-eared senior housing center, but the laugh lines don’t feel like rim-shots in the hands of these actors. Seibert,’s Dennis, for example, is an erudite, well-read, witty fellow who can quote Dorothy Parker and Alexander Wolcott from memory, so when he delivers a zinger, it just feels natural. When Crawford’s Annie goes into hysterics over the possibility of going to jail, her anxious blatherings about what will happen to her in “C-block” could be cringey in the hands of a lesser actress, but she pulls it off beautifully and comedically. Bridges Johnny is very much at the center of the play, but if anything he underplays his role to a lovely result.

Three other characters are key to balancing the story. Mark Colson as Chuck,, the “dustmop guy,” a former teacher who is on parole from prison, is brooding and beleaguered with a secret dragged out of him by Johnny. MaryJo Cuppone plays Josefina, the manager of Placid Pines, a tough but loving overseer. Stroili, who says he got the inspiration for the story from working in a nursing home community when he was a young man starting out, knows there are relationships that form between staff and residents that do not resemble, let’s say, Nurse Ratched and  Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Too, he knows staff have their own stories about how they came to be caregivers or custodians in a rural senior center. Ethan May plays Tyler, another custodial staffer who one of the elderly residents fancies for his butt. A newcomer to PRT, May has excellent timing and stage presence.

The set, designed by Bartley H. Bauer, is drab, but so is the setting supposed to be. He nails the feeling of this room that is one of two places the residents spend the most time in—the other being their own quarters, which we don’t see. Noele Stollmack designed lighting. Danna Seagrest designed props.  Brad Phillips designed sound. Suzanne Young designed costumes.

Jukebox For The Algonquin is a classically structured, beautifully written play. There are no gimmicks of structure, no time-shifting, no preachy self-conscious themes, no sit-com jokes in need of a laugh-track  and no multi-media elements. Just a terrifically written script supported by a thoughtful story, a group of excellent actors and artists, an intermission and a grateful audience.

Jukebox for The Algonquin plays through September 2.  Showtimes and ticket information can be accessed here.