Last summer, when Mara Mills first saw what Livia and Marc Straus were planning at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art in Peekskill, she wanted in.

Their exhibit, “Size Matters: XXL” includes 31 pieces of oversized art, epic art. Art of dramatic scale.

Mills, a theatrical director who ran the Herbert Mark Newman Theater at the Pleasantville Y from 1991 to 2004, and local director Tom Kramer (no relation to this reporter) teamed up with the Hudson Valley Writers Center to sponsor a playwrighting possibility.

They invited playwright friends – and those who caught wind of it – to come to Peekskill to see the exhibit and be inspired. Some, farther flung, had images sent to them.

Thirty-five playwrights were inspired to write and submit scripts.

Judges winnowed the 35 scripts to six, judging them on four criteria: relevance to the image, dialogue, character and dramatic arc or integrity.

The judges included playwright Staci Swedeen, whose “Goldman Project” was seen Off-Broadway in October, Kramer, Mills, actor Steve Wescott, Livia and Marc Straus, HVCCA administrator Jessica Rogers, and Brenda Connor-Bey, the poet laureate of Greenburgh. (Yes, Greenburgh has a poet laureate.)

The plan was to present the new plays in front of the works that inspired them – and that is exactly what will happen: Kramer will act as docent, escorting the audience, which is limited to 30 for space reasons, through the exhibit. When they reach a featured painting, they’ll sit on the floor and the play will begin.

Why theater in a museum?

“I started in street theater,” says Mills. “To me, the way you really make theater is you make it any place you can.”

The art-theater tour will start at Dutch artist Tjebbe Beekman’s Untitled mixed media on canvas (118×65 inches), which looks for all the world like a tall apartment building. It inspired Queens-based playwright Theodore D. Kemper to write “Nearer My God to Thee,” which puts God in the penthouse of this apartment building. That play features Jay and Irene Howard and Tom Beck.

Next is Richard Jackson’s sculptural “Living Room,” a cube (123×144 x 144 inches) in which paint has been splattered over a chair, walls and a TV. This will be a backdrop for William Coyle’s play “Living Room,” with Kurt Lauer and Joan Cavallo as a couple using art as a prism for their relationship.

After that is Francesca DiMattio’s “Black Ship,” an oil on canvas (84×120 inches), in front of which Teri Anzalone will present Barbara Fischer’s play “Mothership.”

Kramer will then take the audience over to John Newsom’s “The Great Divide,” oil on canvas (90×120 inches) and Joshua Kashinsky’s play of the same name, with Nadine Greco and Joan Cavallo.

Next is Yan Pei-Ming’s massive “Red Self-Portrait,” an oil on canvas that is 137 1/2 inches square.

David Fox, a London native who has lived in the States for 26 years and now calls Brewster home, says he knew instantly that he would use “Red Self-Portrait” as his inspiration.

“I saw the play instantly,” he says. “It took me 30 seconds and I saw this whole thing playing out.”

The play that he saw is now called “Self Portrait” featuring actors Neil Schliefer, Daniel Basiletti and Tom Coppola. It’s about an artist who’s been arrested by the state for creating unofficial art. With Yan Pei-Ming’s stern and huge image as a backdrop, the artist is interrogated for subversive activities.

Fox’s questioner, Schliefer, raises questions about the value of art and the role of the artist: “It’s not a portrait, it’s a billboard,” he says accusingly. And “This image incites the people to riot.” And “Art upholds an ideology. What does your art uphold?”

“Self-Portrait” is Fox’s first completed play. After a recent rehearsal at which he first heard actors reciting lines he had written, he was pragmatic but optimistic – and beaming.

“It needs a little work,” he said. “But it’s getting there.”

After the audience sees “Self-Portrait,” they will be led around the corner to Toba Khedoori’s “Holes,” a massive oil on paper measuring 143×236 inches. The series of dots appear to be a negative image of a starry sky, and inspired New Jersey playwright Ron Frankel to write “You Owe Me One,” which features Kurt Lauer and Tom Beck.

This collaboration is not without boundaries: Livia Straus is understandably nervous when the actors stand too close to the art, so Mills adjusts their positions.

Still, this marriage of new art and new theater seems a good fit: The art is so fresh, says Livia Straus, “that the paint is still drying on ‘The Great Divide.’”

And, adds Mills: “The ink is still drying on some of these plays.

‘IMAGE & SCRIPT’
What: Six short plays, inspired by and presented in front of six large-scale works of art. A collaboration between the Hudson Valley Writers Center and the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art.
Where: Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, 1701 Main St., Peekskill.
When: 3 and 5 p.m. Sunday.
Tickets: $12 HVCCA & Hudson Valley Writers’ Center members, $15 non-members.
Call: 914-788-0100.

PHOTO: Mara Mills and Tom Kramer in front of “Red Self-Portrait,” by Yan Pei-Ming, at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art. Photo by Seth Harrison.