There’s a lot of food for thought—maybe even too much—in Christopher Demos-Brown’s play The Cancellation of Lauren Fein, now onstage at Florida Studio Theatre’s Gompertz Theatre.

The playwright-lawyer's work has been seen before at FST, with a production of his American Son, about a biracial couple searching for the truth about their missing teenage son. He’s nothing if not topical and hard-hitting in his approach, and that holds true for Lauren Fein as well.

Fein (Rachel Moulton) is a tenured professor at an unnamed but prestigious university, acclaimed for her potentially lifesaving scientific research and a possible Nobel Prize nominee. She’s also gay, Jewish, and married to Latina Paola (Ana Miramontes), with whom she’s raising a Black foster son (Luke Brodersen). She’s confident, not to say brash—perhaps too candid in some of her comments, which leads to trouble following a class session where she’s reluctantly dumbing down evolution education for non-science students.

One student complaint leads to another. At first it all seems slight and silly, and even the new college dean (Tatiana Williams), a Black friend of Fein’s who’s fought hard for her position, is inclined to make little of it. But accusations snowball on social media and Reddit boards; words like "trigger warning" and "privilege" keep popping up; and before long Fein is fighting to clear herself at a more formal hearing that could end with her losing her tenure, her job, and possibly her family and more.

It's easy enough to see how things could so quickly go downhill in Demos-Brown’s setting, where the university’s lawyer (Amy Bodnar) is willing to tear apart every word Fein’s ever said or written to prove her guilty in the culture wars. Misunderstandings, ignorance, prejudice, political correctness, envy, fear—all of these emotions play a role in what happens to Fein, and she’s not always her own best advocate.

So, audiences may find themselves shaking their heads at the unfairness of it all. It’s worth considering too, though, what a counterpart story to Demos-Brown’s might offer—one where we see how the dismantling of the diversity, equity and inclusion programs that’s currently taking place in institutions across the country might impact a protagonist.

The cast, under the direction of Richard Hopkins, works hard to play up the passions here. Moulton is believable and tough, Brodersen as the young son ultimately heart-breaking, Miramontes sympathetic, even as she is burdened with the bulk of narrative exposition. Howard Kaye, as a Southern-accented attorney/friend on Fein’s side, evidently replaced a previous actor at some point during production; on the night I attended, he was still clutching a (lawyerly) folder to recite some of his lines, but that will probably change very soon.

Freddie Lee Bennett as a Christian Nigerian associate of Fein’s, Kevin Loreque as a gay teacher friend of Paola’s, and Simone Stadler as a student with a past round out the cast and the sides on the argument over Fein’s fate. It all adds up to a play that might inspire some lively after-theater conversations.

The Cancellation of Lauren Fein continues through March 9 at the Gompertz. For tickets, call (941) 366-9000 or visit floridastudiotheatre.org.