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Somebody needs to teach Neil Bartram and Brian Hill how to enjoy having a show on Broadway. The Canadian-born writers of The Story of My Life, which opens Thursday (Feb 19) at New York's Booth Theatre, have failed entirely to indulge as befits their situation, neither swanning through boozy theatre-district hangouts such as Bar Centrale late into the evening, nor demanding their producers come forth with odd and enticing treats to keep their creativity humming.

"We're homebodies," Hill shrugged with a smile the other day over lunch, while Bartram nodded and held up an iPhone picture of their wheaten terrier, Willow. "We're trying to focus on the show."

The pair are modest, as is their show. Here at the restaurant Angus McIndoe on West 44th, all but deserted even though it's 90 minutes before a Wednesday matinee, Bartram and Hill each order a small chicken-breast salad and a Diet Coke. For day jobs, the two perform unflashy but necessary theatre-world tasks: Bartram, the duo's composer and lyricist, has been an assistant for Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty ( Ragtime) and has done some music copying, while Hill, the book writer, is an associate director of Disney's The Little Mermaid, where he is responsible for maintaining the show's quality as cast members come and go.

In the world of Broadway musicals, The Story of My Life couldn't be further from the financial scale and aesthetic indulgence of the Disney machine. It is a one-act, two-man show, performed on a single monochromatic set, about the 30-year relationship between two ordinary men.

Called home to perform the eulogy of Alvin Kelby (Malcolm Gets), his oldest friend, the award-winning writer Thomas Weaver (Will Chase), fights through an epic case of writer's block to recall the key episodes in their friendship and pen an appropriate tribute.

The show was conceived about 10 years ago as the story of a friendship between a man and a woman, but Hill, 46, and Bartram, 44, kept veering into what they called When Harry Met Sally romantic territory.

They put it away until about four years ago when Bartram, in need of some material for a musical theatre workshop, suggested that they take another look. They changed the characters to two men. "There's something more guarded about male friendships that we thought was interesting and dramatic," Bartram explained. Richard Maltby ( Ain't Misbehavin') saw the workshop and offered some notes; he is now directing it.

Canadian Stage Company picked up the show for a November, 2006, production with Brent Carver and Jeffrey Kuhn that satisfied no one: not the critics nor the creatives. "We took it back and did a major rewrite on it right away," Bartram said. A 2007 showcase presentation hosted by the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (the same organization where The Drowsy Chaperone got its stateside kick-start) attracted the attention of the producer Chase Mishkin ( Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), who signed on to steer it to Broadway.

"We talk about the pinch-me moments along the way," Bartram said, reflecting on the show's long path to opening night. "To see the Playbill — the word 'playbill' on something that we wrote, that's cool. And the marquee. And, you know, Malcolm Gets in my living room rehearsing a song; I have to shake my head, I can't believe this is happening."

Hill, born in Kitchener, Ont., and Bartram, who hails from Burlington, met in 1993 while performing in the Toronto production of Forever Plaid, for which they shared a Dora. Five years later, they bought a house in the Beaches neighbourhood, sealing their commitment to each other with a private ceremony marked with matching rings. They moved to New York six years ago.

"Neil says, 'If you're a surfer, you don't live in Denver,'" Hill explained. "As musical theatre writers, this is kind of where we have to be, to work on the level we're working."

Bartram rattled off the connections they made within a short time of relocating to New York. "Suddenly, these people I'd admired were in my virtual Rolodex, and it doesn't compare with what we were able to access in Toronto. It was a completely different world. Those people are eager to nurture the next generation."

The Story of My Life is, in some ways, the sort of show often written by those who are wistful about what they have left behind. It is ultimately a celebration of roots and a reminder that creativity is sometimes seeded by the place from which people hail. "I don't think we consciously put that in, but I'm sure our situations have fed that," Hill said.

Bartram added, "Being in the position that we are, there's a certain amount of guilt about what could appear [to be] abandoning your home country."

They continue to stay connected to Canada: They have the musical theatre rights to Timothy Findley's Not Wanted on the Voyage, and have been working with the director Susan Schulman on something called Clara's Piano, both of which have been developed with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

Their aspirations for Story, meanwhile, are small. They call it a good calling card, and note that it has helped raise their profile in New York. "I hope it opens the door to something other than just the big blockbusters," Hill said. "Newer writers, something a little more challenging."

(They're modest, remember?)