Bare truth: as Bare: a Pop Opera storms off-Broadway, the musical's creators tell how their own lives inspired their passionate cult hit about two Catholic boys in love.

When he was 17, Damon Intrabartolo, an altar boy at 7 and an organist at 13, went to confession to ask his priest, what he should do about the clandestine love affair he'd been having with another teenage boy. "He basically told me that some sins transcend forgiveness and/hat I'd better knock it off," says Intrabartolo. "My boyfriend was really pagan and really smart, and he was like, 'Look, who do you love more, me or that silly church?'"

So the next Sunday at Mass, instead of hymns Intrabartolo played his favorite Madonna music: "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina," "Oh Father," and "Vogue." Of course he was fired, but now Intrabartolo is having the last laugh.

His debut musical, Bare: A Pop Opera, about two boys in a Catholic boarding school caught in (what else?) a clandestine love affair, begins an open ended run at Dodger Stages, a brand-new off-Broadway theater complex, on September 22. This after a sold-out off-Broadway run this past spring and a smash Los Angeles debut in 2000 that turned the show into an overnight cult hit, especially with younger audiences.

"I think it's been a while since there's been a theatrical event that can speak to people of this age range," says Michael Arden, 21, who won the role of the reluctantly closeted Peter by auditioning with his own song about a boy coming out. "People would conic up to me who are 15, saying 'Think you for this.'"

The show's youthful appeal makes sense; Intrabartolo, now 30, began composing Baby with lyricist (and fellow gay Catholic) Jon Hartmere Jr. after they met at the University of Southern California in 1997. In fact, Hartmere credits his work on Baby for helping him to finally come out. (It was at USC that Intrabartolo also befriended out film composer John Ottman, which led to orchestrating gigs for Ottman's scores to films including The Cable Guy and X2.)

Perhaps the most moving song in Bare is "See Me," Peter's impassioned attempt to come out to a mother very much in denial. Hartmere, also 30, wrote it before he had done the same. "I feel like my mother probably wants to stand up at every performance and go, 'That did not happen!'" he says with a laugh. Indeed, for the first New York run, Hartmere says, his mother "put 50 people on a bus from my hometown" of Woburn, Mass., to come see the show. Then she forced everyone to write her son a note of congratulations on the way back.

It's that kind of response that makes Intrabartolo and Hartmere confident their show is still relevant in a world of Queer Eye and gay marriage. "The pace of change [since we started writing] has been breathtaking. But coming out is still a major issue, and there are still kids killing themselves," says Hartmere. Intrabartolo, now working on a musical about gay activists Harvey Milk and Cleve Jones, is more blunt: "There's a long way to go. One kid calling you a faggot when you're 9 years old is enough. You pray that you survive high school, and then you begin yore' adolescence in college, maybe. I don't think that's the best we can do, so, hopefully, something like Bare will bring us a step closer."

Vary writes for Entertainment Weekly.