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Published: Dec. 2, 2024 by Susan Stapleton

Erma Bombeck had a way with words. She could evoke laughter, tears, while sharing the tales of being an everyday suburban housewife in the Midwest. She touched the lives of millions through her syndicated column, “At Wit’s End,” that ran in some 900 newspapers from 1965 to five days before her death in 1996.

She wrote 15 books, appeared on “Good Morning America” for more than a decade, and even had TV sitcoms based on her writings — “The Grass Is Always Greener” and “Maggie.”

Now she’s coming to the stage nearly 30 years after her death and still dispensing her brand of humor while in the spotlights of the Temple Theater. Two former Des Moines Register writers wrote the screenplay that has found footing with audiences nationwide since the show originally opened in 2021.

“Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End” brings a one-woman show starring actress Pam Sherman as Bombeck and written by Allison Engel and Margaret Engel, twin sisters from Iowa who worked at the Des Moines Tribune and Des Moines Register.

The Register talked to Sherman and Allison Engel about the show and what audiences can expect when Sherman brings the humorist back to life on the stage for three weeks.

This conversation has been lightly edited.

Des Moines Register: Tell me what audiences can expect in the show.

Pam Sherman: They can expect to laugh, be moved, to learn an incredible story. For those who don't know who she is, I feel like her story needs to be heard. You're welcomed in via a construct that makes perfect sense. She's talking to an audience, and then suddenly you're in her home, and then you're there with the kids, and you're pulled into real life. Her specific circumstances became universal because she was so honest. So many people could say, “I see myself in that.”

I think we need stories with delight right now.

Allison Engel: I think that the thing that is so amazing about Erma is how timeless her humor was when we went through her books and her speeches. There was very little that was dated or to a certain time period or things that people wouldn't get. She really is timeless. She said she never won a Pulitzer, which she should have, but she got the prize for having her columns on refrigerators all across America.

While she was primarily a humorist, it's interesting, the most requested columns were her serious ones, her poignant ones.

Even though she could be hilariously funny, and we tried to put as much of the funny as we could in the play, we also included some of her poignant remarks. There were quite a few housewife humorists at the time, and a lot of them have fallen by the wayside. They're not names we remember. We remember Erma Bombeck because she was very honest about what it was really like to be home with children and to be a housewife.

I think the other thing that was a surprise to us is how many men got like teary at the end. Because really, what Erma was about is the overlooked and underappreciated mom. We would see men wiping away tears because it reminded them of their moms and their grandmothers.

DMR: How do you get in the character? How do you become Erma Bombeck?

PS: I look nothing like her in real life. For me, it was obviously deep research in the play itself. I start as an actor with the texts that the writers have given me, and that really, really helps. And I watched a lot of her. The beauty of playing a real-life character who's no longer with us is that I'm not there to do a duplication. I'm there to really be in the moment and create the emotional connection to her story that will move the audience, and that is human, and isn't about an impersonation. I'm very lucky that the wig is perfect.
DMR: How did you get the opportunity to write this play?

AE: It's so you know, as they say, work begets work. We did the Molly Ivins play (“Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins”) because Peggy was supposed to be on a panel with Molly Ivins and Molly died. Peggy called me the day she died, and said, "We need to do a play to keep her words alive." We had never done a play before, although we've both been really interested in theater.

When our kids were grown and out of college, we just decided to kind of make a pivot to playwriting. We're still working on other things for the future.

DMR: Allison, what does it mean to you to be coming back to Des Moines?

AE: I'm in Pasadena, although I've been in Des Moines twice in the last month. I stay very connected and have a lot of really great friends in Des Moines. But it means everything for it to come back to Des Moines, because my husband and I actually moved back to Windsor Heights from California about four years ago. I have always kept a real connection to Iowa and we used to farm in Osceola, which was right when we were first married. I went to Iowa State and worked at the Register when it was still the Des Moines Tribune.

There were actually three of us, three Engel bylines at one time at the paper. I was the first and then they hired Peggy, my twin, and then they hired our brother, Jonathan. Oh, my God, people were getting us all mixed up. But Peggy went on to become the first woman in the Register’s Washington bureau, first woman ever, and she was there until she then was hired away by the Washington Post. So Engels have been part of the Register and Tribune for a decade or 12 years or so, maybe longer.

How to see ‘Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End’

Location: Temple Theater, 1011 Locust St., Des Moines

Dates: Dec. 3-21, various times

Tickets: Start at $20.

More information:desmoinesperformingarts.org