A SAMUEL FRENCH, INC. TITLE

Everything is Wonderful

Full-Length Play, Drama  /  3w, 3m

When an Amish couple’s two sons are killed in a car accident, the family struggles to maintain their faith and cling to their way of life.

Everything is Wonderful

  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    3w, 3m
  • Duration
    Duration
    120 minutes (2 hours)
  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult

Details

Summary
When an Amish couple’s two sons are killed in a car accident, the family struggles to maintain their faith and cling to their way of life. In an act of unfathomable forgiveness, they take in Eric, the wayward young driver of the car. But Eric’s mistake cracks open the family’s dark history and brings back their eldest daughter, excommunicated five years earlier. Miri finds her family in shambles, the man who killed her brothers living in the barn, and the man who drove her away intent upon marrying her younger sister. Without a way forward, this insular community must seek to heal the deep wounds of the past, forcing everyone into a new kind of reckoning.
History
Everything Is Wonderful premiered at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia on 7 July 2017. Directed by Ed Herendeen, the production featured Jason Babinksy, Paul DeBoy, Lucky Gretzinger, Lexi Lapp, Hollis McCarthy and Jessica Savage.
MIRI – Twenty-five years old in the present. Smart, plain-spoken, independent. Left the Amish at the age of twenty and coped by building a hard shell around her heart. More like her mother than her father.
ERIC – Late thirties/early forties. Unemployed, confused, and adrift in the world. He is an addict, and there is a dark core at the center of him that he’s fighting very hard to keep buried. Deeply self-centered and self-loathing. Has a hard time finishing a sentence; when he changes directions mid-thought, that moment is indicated by (No…) in the script.
ABRAM – Twenty-five years old in the present. Strapping, polite, charming, and entitled. Clean-shaven to indicate he is an unmarried Amish man. Miri’s childhood sweetheart and also the reason she left the Amish. He is a very charming brute; the audience should like him.
RUTH – Eighteen years old in the present. Miri’s youngest sibling and a version of Miri as she might have been as a “good Amish girl.” Ruth is sweet and good, but not simple. Unintentionally funny in spite of herself. More like her father in and around an Amish communitythan her mother.
ESTHER – Late forties/early fifties in the present. Miri’s mother. A hard worker who suffers no fools and speaks her mind, and lives with a hereditary current of anger just below the surface. On the outside she seems simple and perhaps submissive, but she has a core of steel.
JACOB – (Pronounced “YAK-ob”) Late forties/early fifties in the present. Miri’s father, an open and earnest man. Wears the distinctive short beard sans mustache that indicates a married Amish man. Believes the best way to make peace with the deaths of his children is to actively work on forgiveness. The tragedy has made him desperate to reconcile with his oldest daughter.
  • Time Period Contemporary, Present Day
  • Setting In and around an Amish community. The present and the past.
  • Features Contemporary Costumes/Street Clothes
  • Duration 120 minutes (2 hours)
  • Cautions
    • Mild Adult Themes

Media

“A perceptive, character-rich drama about forgiveness in an Amish community.” – Washington Post

“Thought-provoking, often beautiful, and in a quiet way, inspiring… it should not be missed.” – Broadway World

Everything is Wonderful is challenging theatrical terrain that few plays tackle successfully. Ms. Marcantel does so, however, with beauty and grace.” – DC Metro Theater Arts

Licensing & Materials

  • Minimum Fee: £55 per performance plus VAT when applicable.

Scripts

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Authors

Chelsea Marcantel

Chelsea Marcantel is an LA-based writer, director and collaborator.

Reared by Cajuns in southwest Louisiana, Chelsea has lived and made theatre among the tribes of the Midwest, Appalachia, the Mid-Atlantic and now the West Coast. In 2016, she completed a Lila Acheson Wallace A ...

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