That was in the 1980s. Today Tyson has not only turned his life around -- for eight years he's been a teacher and counselor to autistic kids and adults. He's also transformed the struggles of a tough growing up into a burgeoning career as a novelist, and now one whose fiction is being brought to a new community audience on the stage.

As the company moved into the last week of rehearsals before the Nov. 8 world premier of A Family Affair at the black box theater at Fair Haven Middle School, the Independent sat down with the novelist, the director-adapter Dexter Singleton (pictured), and a number of the actors to see what moves them and will likely move audiences about the new work.

Independent: Drugs, too early pregnancy, shootings, the story being told is in many ways an unrelenting portrait of life in the projects. Do the book and now the play see light at the end of this tunnel?

Tyson: Well, it's true. There are not too many success stories that come out of this environment, believe me. But at least in my case, and there are others, the message is that where you come from doesn't dictate where you're going.

Independent: You went to this very school, Fair Haven Middle, you said, and to Cross. Did you come under the influence of a teacher there or some family member . . . where does the writing impulse come from?

Tyson: When I was young, I couldn't express myself, in speech, to people when they bothered me or whatever. I began to write things down, actual notes and letters, at an early age, and I delivered them to people and that said what I felt. Then I had an uncle, a writer and an actor, and he encouraged me. Sometimes that's all it takes.

Independent: Meaning?

Tyson: Meaning that as tough as things get, and in this book, this play, lots of bad things happen to people, as long as they have family backing them and believing in them, and as long as they have hope -- those too things, family and hope -- there can be a way out.

Independent: In the play [the actors running through their parts here are Tamara Malowitz as Jackie and Jose Monteiro, who also is the Greater New Haven Arts Council director of community cultural development, as Roger], a very young Jackie gets pregnant,. The father won't acknowledge it, but she finds a man, Roger, who really loves her. But he's a felon himself, and although he's concealed it, when it comes out, he loses his job. Then the subsequent unemployment drives Roger to commit a crime that lands him back in jail, and then Jackie and her kid also spiral downward.

Singleton: That's right. That's the main relationship we follow. Everyone's rooting for Roger and Jackie. In a play we can't put in all of what was in the novel, but this relationship, and it's genuine love, is the center. Also Jackie's relationship with her father who left the family, but returns when Jackie's younger brother is killed in a drive-by, that's key also.

Independent: So Roger lost hope?
Tyson: That's right, the conditions were such that the only way he could find to support Jackie and his child was to do a robbery. Sometimes conditions make you prey to your friends taking advantage of you. Jackie is so down that she becomes vulnerable to her best friend Lisa turning her into a drug user too.

Independent: And what do you hope audiences to come away with?
Singleton: Well, a lot of these issues -- the lure of drugs and having a baby when you're too young, all of that is, unfortunately, not exactly unknown to kids in our community. But not all parents are comfortable talking with their kids about these issues. It's a family show, but right for kids of about age 12 and up and their parents. We hope families will leave the theater talking to each other about these issues.

Independent: And what's next for the team of Tyson and Singleton? Kind of has a ring!
Tyson: When my next book comes out, Blood Bond (Urban Books), I hope Dexter will be doing an adaptation of that.
Singleton: Yes, and this, Family Affair, is a world premier in New Haven, but we think it speaks to lots of people in lots of places. We hope it will take off from here.

The performances of A Family Affair are Nov 8, 9, 10, 15, and 16 at 8 p.m. at the Fair Haven Middle School. For more information about the Bregamos Theater Company and to arrange for tickets, click here.