I can still remember watching Bob Bowersox when he was a host on QVC, the iconic media and e-commerce company that sells an endless number of products on television, streaming and online platforms. Bowersox, a native of Chester County, was the charming host who could have sold dog toys to cats from 1986 to 2008.

Little did I know at the time that Bowersox, now 78, was also a prolific theatrical producer with more than 40 plays presented at professional theaters, an actor in 21 films, director of more than a dozen plays, author of nine stage plays and eight screenplays as well as numerous short stories, hundreds of songs, several of which ended up on two albums he recorded in his 20s, poetry collections and two novels. His latest opus, a play entitled “Growing Flowers on the Moon,” will have its world premiere staged at the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion, 200 W. Tulpehocken St. in Germantown, from Nov. 6 to 15.

“My sister and I used to visit our aunt, who had lost her husband in her 20s and never married again,” Bowersox told the Local last week, “She had a great deal of wealth and lived in Wilmington. She’d sit there and drink sherry. One night, I asked her why I was named after her late husband. She said, ‘I see a lot of my Robert in you. If my [deceased] Robert knocked on my door today, I’d say, ‘You might as well grow flowers on the moon.’ I thought that would be a great title for a play someday.”

The story centers around a reclusive, elderly woman named Helen MacMillan, who has lived in Cargill House, an estate mansion in Savannah, Ga., for the past 50 years. For all those years, she has been grieving the death of her fiancé, David Cargill, having never moved on emotionally after his demise. The night the play takes place, Feb. 8, is the 50th anniversary of Cargill’s death, and Helen and her lifelong friend and companion, Flora Anthony, are marking the sad event as they have for half a century of Feb. 8s.

But then a knock comes at the door, and a 25-year-old African-American man enters the home, fully believing himself to be David Cargill, although the Cargill of a half-century ago was white. Despite the obvious impossibility, he knows things that only David Cargill would know — private moments and conversations and a thorough knowledge of Cargill House, and secrets only David Cargill and Helen MacMillan would have shared 50 years ago. How could he possibly know these intimate details from long before he was born? Why is he really there? Is it even possible that he could be the reincarnation of Helen’s long-lost love?

“It begins as a suspense thriller,” said Bowersox, who will also produce and direct the play, “but it evolves and develops into something completely different. There are two twists at the end that you will never see coming. There is a paranormal aspect to it. We are playing with the minds of the audience, directing them in one way and then another way.”

The play stars several well known actors in the Philadelphia theater community — Susan Giddings, Cathy Simpson, Travoye Joyner, Kathryn Wylde and Brian Scott Campbell. Bowersox’s wife and producing partner, Melody G. Moore, will stage-manage the production.

Bowersox received his BA in journalism from the University of Delaware, and graduated from Gotham Writers Workshop in New York with concentrations in screenwriting and playwriting. He received his Professional Programs master’s degree in screenwriting from UCLA. He was also a reporter for the Wilmington News Journal for four years and was founder and executive editor of Fine Times magazine, the “Rolling Stone of the Delaware Valley,” from 1978 to 1983. He currently resides and writes full-time in Center City.

The Maxwell Mansion is one of the last surviving examples of Victorian architecture in Philadelphia. It was built in 1859 for textile merchant Ebenezer Maxwell and his wife, Anna Smith Maxwell. It has been exquisitely curated and maintained under the eye of Executive Director George W. Boudreau. The mansion and property will be part of the new Philadelphia chapter of the Victorian Society in America in 2025, an internationally recognized organization that works to educate about the fascinating history of the era. The mansion is open to the public for tours most days.

For more information or tickets, call TheatreXP at 302-540-6102 or visit theatrexp.org/blank/. All performances will begin at 7 p.m. except for Sunday, Nov. 9, when a matinee will also be performed. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.