Pam Sherman stars in "Erma Bombeck: At WIt's End".

Photo Courtesy of Ron Heerkens Jr. & Goat Factory Media Entertainment.

At Wit’s End
By Allison and Margaret Engel
Shea’s 710 Main
Director: Mark Cuddy
Starring: Pam Sherman

Erma Bombeck, one of our country’s most beloved humorists, captured the frustrations of her generation by asking, “If life is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing in the pits?” Starring Pam Sherman, At Wit’s End is the story behind America’s favorite average housewife, who championed the lives of women with an incomparable wit that sprang from the most unexpected place of all—the truth.

Sherman, too, is a nationally syndicated columnist, and also an actor, recovering lawyer, and leadership consultant who was profiled in People magazine about her career transition from attorney to actor. Since then, she’s settled in Rochester, New York, where, after years away from acting, she was tapped by Geva artistic director Mark Cuddy to play Erma in this new one-woman show. It was a smash that the team then took to Denver and are now bringing to Shea’s 710.

The story of how your law firm closed and you pursued your acting dreams made People magazine; how did that happen?
I met the DC bureau chief, and she was doing this story on people who ditched their day jobs to pursue their dreams, and she thought it was fascinating. It actually helped stoke my consulting career because, after the article came out, I got a call from the head of training at the Department of Justice saying, “we love this idea of lawyer turned actor; can you help me make my lawyers more interesting?” And I created all these workshops on how to show up using acting techniques for your business, and now I do it all over the world from Cincinnati to Saudi Arabia.

This all happened in DC, but now you’re in Rochester; how did that happen and what did it do to your acting career?
My husband is from Geneva, New York, and is an entrepreneur. In 2001, he decided to buy an old army base, which gave us an opportunity to grow our business in his home state. Our business is TAGeXbrands.com, and we manage, liquidate, and refurbish to resell food service equipment. I had a busy acting career in DC and DC is a beautiful town to be an actor in, so I said, “You go; I’ll stay.” But, our children were three and five, and I kind of loved him still. You can still find my fingernail marks on the banister of my Bethesda home. We settled in a cornfield and that’s where my column, “Suburban Outlaw,” was born. Then, last summer, someone came and put a note in our mailbox to sell our house and we moved into the city of Rochester; it’s a rental so it’s like an Airbnb but with all of our furniture. The column is now “Suburban Outlaw.”

Did you act once you got to Rochester?
I thought my career was done because Geva at the time was doing August Wilson plays and musicals. After my [one-woman] show, Pumping Josey: Life and Death in Suburbia, was produced in DC and we traveled to a couple of other cities, I thought, “I’m good.” I did the column and was building a business doing coaching. It’s called the ShermanEDGE; I like to say I used to tell bankers what to say and now I tell them how to say it.

How, after all that time, did you end up playing Erma in three cities so far?
The greatest gift when I moved here eighteen years ago was I met Mark and gave him my play, and he said he wasn’t interested. And I said, “OK, I’m never going to act again.” Without that, I never would have created my business and created this whole other path. But, they asked me to do their Summer Curtain Call fundraiser, and I’ve taken on the role of auctioneer at Geva, and performance satisfaction was coming from speaking and making a different platform with “Suburban Outlaw.”

I never thought I’d go back on stage, and then Mark handed me the envelope and said, “I can only hear your voice.” I opened the envelope and burst into tears, and said, “No, I can’t do that. I’m busy.” My husband, I gotta give him credit—thirty-five years, we’re still married; I call him my bungee cord—said, “How can you not do this?”

What was your previous knowledge of Erma Bombeck?
I don’t know if she was in the Staten Island Advance where I grew up. My awareness came from her television appearances on Johnny Carson and Good Morning America, so, for my own research, I read If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries and I laughed out loud and found myself totally connecting with her. She always saw herself as a journalist and she was a smart writer. Her economy and sentence construction was beautiful. She wrote that column three times a week, and every book she wrote was [on top of that], not a compilation of columns. She wrote through the story of her kidney disease; she had dialysis four times a day and continued to keep up with her column. That’s in the play, and the gasp that goes up from the audience is remarkable.

What made you feel you were right for the role?
I read it and thought I was completely wrong. I think Erma has a Midwestern sensibility. She’s very sort of a straight man and the humor creeps up on you. Today, our humor is very different. The generosity of her humor is what spoke to me and what I bring to my writing and that I could totally relate to. And the understanding of being a mother and wife and managing a big business. There’s no “just a…” Everybody is something and someone and that’s the message I loved about Erma, so I was willing to take the leap and put on the wig.

Not having acted for thirteen years, what was it like to be back onstage?
It’s just me, an ironing board, and a vacuum. I won’t lie: it was terrifying, terrifying having to go back on stage and, by the way, learn to iron. For my opening night gift, I gave Mark [Cuddy, who directed] a bunch of wrinkle-free shirts to show him what my life is like. Eventually, I calmed down and did what actors do: be in the moment, pay attention, and do the doing. Memorization always seems so interesting to audiences and that’s the least important thing. Any monkey can memorize; the hardest thing to do was create the moments within the play and then walking, talking, vacuuming, and ironing to ground it in reality.

I was so excited to do the role and meet the playwrights; Peggy lives in my old neighborhood and is friends with all my friends; can you believe that? They’re twin sisters who were both journalists and they were commissioned by the family to write the play. Peggy came to Rochester twice to see it, and Allison flew to Denver. Peggy is coming to Buffalo because they love this production. I’m excited to have audiences. My husband has seen me at plays that were him and a bottle of Jack Daniels in the theater.

Has this wet your whistle for more acting?
It’s wet the whistle for more Erma. I love sharing her story. Who knows? I’m very happy acting like a coach and consultant for clients. I love the combination of using acting and lawyer brain so leaders can show up with presence and impact. So, sure, as long as it doesn’t take away from the work I do with my clients. All actors have day jobs, right?

Anything else to add about Erma or the show?
She’s an iconic female voice for a group of women who didn’t have a voice. But then there’s this surprise that she was an unexpected advocate for ERA and fought beside Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug. She was a Catholic housewife from Dayton who not only became a columnist but also wrote for thirty years three times a week and was in over 900 newspapers and traveled around doing something very controversial. I want that heard by everyone.

I love a good laugh, when an audience guffaws. Comedy is really important to me, but that flip side is when it’s really heartfelt and you feel the richness of her life; in the moment, that’s special. My favorite parts of the play are the quiet moments, but I also love the discovery of her advocacy, when she has that moment of personal discovery. I’m so excited to bring this piece to Buffalo; it’s the cool city to the north. 

Playwright Donna Hoke writes about theater for Buffalo Spree and Forever Young.

The original story can be found here: Forever Young WNY