When Something Wonderful Ends
Play Description
WHEN SOMETHING WONDERFUL ENDS explores the loss of one’s mother, America’s dependence on foreign oil, and Barbie dolls in an ingenious, whimsical, touching, funny, infuriating manner that only playwright Sherry Kramer could achieve. While packing up her parents’ home following the death of her mother, Sherry uncovers the treasure trove of Barbies from her baby-boom childhood while embarking on the homework of a lifetime: discovering the roots of Islamic hatred of America and our dependence on the oil in the Middle East. As a Jewish girl growing up in the epicenter of the Bible belt, Sherry knows a thing or two about religious fervor and the passions it engenders.
Production Info
Cast: 1 total (1 female)Full Length Drama (about 85 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
Press Quotes
“While she putters around putting Barbie paraphernalia into boxes, our hostess neatly ties together the personal and the political, yoking her own history to the mess of current global politics and a loss of faith in the American ideal. Quirky and informative.” —Christopher Isherwood, The New York Times
“As the actress telling Kramer’s story packs up the Barbie artifacts of a Baby Boomer youth, the playwright explores both childhood fantasy and grown-up loss, as well as offering a step-by-step theory of why so many in the Arab world have come to hate the United States … it is, bottom line, a moving and provocative piece.” —Christine Dolan, Miami Herald
“Recounting her quest for the moment our way of life began unraveling, playwright Sherry Kramer’s remarkable monologue moves between 1963 and now, between Tehran and Springfield, MO, between radicalized mullahs and vintage Barbies, to unearth truths about America’s pursuit of Middle Eastern oil and her personal history, before arriving at her mother’s grave and the intersection of geopolitical interests and individual responsibility. As timely as it was revealing and as witty as wise.” —Robert Faires, The Austin Chronicle
“In her incisive one-woman, autobiographical play. Playwright Sherry Kramer recalls coming of age, the death of a beloved parent, Judaism, the Middle East crisis and a concise history of the durable Barbie doll … Making Barbie a pivotal character in her narrative, playwright Kramer writes with a fluid hand that balances grief, conflict and the innocence of youth.” —Robert Daniels, Variety
Author(s)
Sherry KramerSherry Kramer's work has been seen at theaters across the country and abroad, including the Humana Festival at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Yale Repertory Theatre, Soho Rep, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York's Second Stage, Woolly Mammoth, and The Theater of the First Amendment. She holds an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers Workshop, and an MFA in Playwriting from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. She was the first national member of New Dramatists. She is also an affiliated writer at The Playwright's Center. She is a recipient of NEA, New York Foundation for the Arts and McKnight Fellowships, the Weissberger Playwriting Award, and a New York Drama League Award (WHAT A MAN WEIGHS), the LA Women in Theater New Play Award (THE WALL OF WATER), the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award (DAVID'S REDHAIRED DEATH), and commissions from The Moscow Arts Theatre/Iowa International Workshop (THE DREAM HOUSE) and the Audrey Skirball Kenis Foundation (THE MAD MASTER). Other plays include: WHEN SOMETHING WONDERFUL ENDS, HOW WATER BEHAVES, THINGS THAT BREAK, A THING OF BEAUTY, ABOUT SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION, NAPOLEON'S CHINA (music theatre piece with Ann Haskell and Rebecca Newton), THE MASTER AND MARGARITA (music theatre adaptation with composer Margaret Pine), THE RELEASE OF A LIVE PERFORMANCE, PARTIAL OBJECTS, THE WORLD AT ABSOLUTE ZERO, HOLD FOR THREE, CAKE, NANO AND NICKI IN BOCA RATON, IVANHOE, AMERICA, THE LONG ARMS OF JUPITER, THE RULING PASSION, THE END OF RADIO, THE LAW MAKES EVENING FALL, and THE BAY OF FUNDY: AN ADAPTATION OF ONE LINE FROM THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE.
Special Notes
If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:
Premiere at Actors Theatre of Louisville
In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypub.com
Related Plays
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
When Fawaz, a young Palestinian-American, travels to Israel and the Occupied West Bank for the wedding of his estranged brother, he finds only Hala, his fiery fiancée, abandoned at the altar. Amidst the rumors and suspicions surrounding his brother’s mysterious disappearance, Fawaz sets out on a dangerous quest through the militarized landscape of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories to find his brother at whatever cost. Boldly political and humorously provocative, TWENTY ONE POSITIONS is an odyssey for our time.
Production Info
Cast: 10 total (4 female, 6 male, 1 female child, flexible casting)Full Length Comedy (about 110 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
Set in South Lebanon, HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM is a soaring love story. When a fleeing refugee encounters a soldier wounded by a roadside bomb, irresistible Palestinian and Israeli characters clash, then ignite a passion that heals.
Production Info
Cast: 2 total (1 female, 1 male, multiethnic cast)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
Before heading off to war in Iraq, Casey Johnson neatly organizes her life into a box of lists, envelopes, and registration forms for her son's activities. Months later, she returns to Western Pennsylvania forever changed, with deep psychological scars that no amount of arranging seems to be able to fix.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (3 female, 4 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
A brutal account of the effect of the Iraq war and past wars on soldiers and military families. What is the legacy of war on the home front? How do we best serve our country?
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (4 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
Play Description
Four Arab women from across the ages meet in the afterlife. As these characters — who include the Biblical Delilah and a secular modern Arab-American — struggle to come to terms with their lives and their choices, this shockingly funny play skewers traditional views on sex, family, and terrorism.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (4 female)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
A comedy about the Iran-Contra affair.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (1 female, 7 male)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
A play about love, sex, ambition, and the Arab American experience, ROAR is the story of a Palestinian American family living in Detroit in the wake of the first Gulf War. Karema and Ahmed Yacoub work long hours in their liquor store while their teenage daughter, Irene, relentlessly pursues a career as a pop star. All hell breaks loose when a notoriously sexy and scandalous relative, Hala, gets thrown out of Kuwait and arrives on the doorstep without a return ticket.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (3 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
A promising Ethiopian soccer star in Israel is courted by an American sports agent. The athlete is involved with another Ethiopian who risks being deported. Meanwhile, there is also a reckless, clandestine operation afoot to airlift one last group of Falasha Jews from Ethiopia to Israel.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (3 female, 5 male, multiethnic cast)Full Length Drama (about 85 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
In this lyrical, searing one-act, an American soldier has an unexpected encounter with two Afghan sisters who are ready to embark on a new life. Their fates — and his — become entangled as the lines between their divergent realities become dangerously blurred.
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (2 female, 1 male)Full Length Drama (about 50 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$0.00–$15.95Play Description
East meets West meets mayhem in this Muslim-American family comedy evoking universal themes of faith, culture, belonging, and desire. TEN ACROBATS adds a new chapter to the American immigrant narrative.
Production Info
Cast: 10 total (4 female, 6 male)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes