Michel Wallerstein

Five Women Waiting is a soulful journey often filled with humor, that spans forty years in the lives of five extraordinary women from different backgrounds. Inspired by true events, these women, brought together after World War Two, attempt to slowly heal their wounds and rebuild their lives. By dividing the story into "time zones" with flashbacks and flash-forwards, the play explores the ways in which these women create a new family and establish bonds that will overcome a lifetime of fear, anger, shame and jealousy.
Act I begins in 1988 in a New York hospital. While HANNA lays in a coma dying of cancer, MIRIAM desperately tries to convince INGRID to honor the heart felt wish Hanna made forty years earlier: to die surrounded by her friends, sitting peacefully under an oak tree. POLA arrives and unsettled emotions stir among the group, propelling Miriam into a memory when all five women were refugees in Sweden. As the scene shifts from 1988 to1948, we discover Pola has decided to risk an uncertain life in the newly formed State of Israel, painfully saying good bye to the family of friends she created after the war. At her farewell party, tensions rise as Pola’s departure makes each of the five women confront their own fears and dreams of an uncertain future. While Pola
readies herself to leave, the women make a hopeful pact: to always remain the sisters they’ve become no matter what fate may bring them.
Act II opens in1970 as all five women are reunited in Pola’s
Apartment in Tel Aviv for the first time since their years in Sweden. There to celebrate Pola’s second wedding (they all missed the first), the reunion becomes an emotional disaster as each woman confronts her own life choices. Sadly, none of their lives have turned out the way they had hoped: Pola is bitter, feeling betrayed by an unfulfilled life in Israel; Ingrid’s seeming life of leisure and blissful love in America reveals itself to be a lie; Miriam’s life with her wealthy sister turns out to be little more than that of a maid’s; Hanna confesses she never revealed her tragic past in the camps to her
family, choosing instead to be free of the painful memories by inventing a happier, fictional history; Eleni was too scarred to start a new family after losing her first one in the war. Building to a complete emotional upheaval, each woman vents her frustration and disappointment towards the other, making it unlikely that the group would ever
come together again . . . until 1988. At Hanna’s bedside, the women are finally able to forgive each other for what happened in Tel Aviv. Hanna dies peacefully as the women spontaneously renew their pledge of forty years ago. Hanna joins them in spirit.
Five Women Waiting is a powerful and compelling story of intense friendships that endure the test of time. Filled with humorous and poignant moments,
Five Women Waiting is a strong ensemble piece, ideal for five versatile actresses and perfect for a small to medium stage.

A man and a woman meet on a park bench. A quirky conversation ensues and the two start forming a strange bond.

Chasing Happy is a modern comedy about personal identity, intense love, raucous sex and the elusive chase for happiness.

Nick, a still handsome and successful architect in his early fifties, has a quick infatuation with Sergio, a sexy, Brazilian man half his age. Since his former lover’s tragic death ten years earlier, Nick feels that all men he’s met are mostly interested in John and the much acclaimed book he wrote before his murder. But young, carefree Sergio doesn’t care about Nick’s past and lives every day in the moment. Nick has convinced himself that Sergio is his last chance at finding true love (or is it just lust?) and wants nothing to come in the way of his happiness . . . not even Rob, Sergio’s overbearing, controlling boyfriend who refuses to let go of Sergio without a fight. Nor Helen, Nick’s very British ex-wife and best friend who needs Nick’s help and support to get over a health crisis. Nor his eccentric mother, Maria, who shows up in search of attention and support after losing her closest friend.

All five characters in the play are haplessly chasing happy, sometimes oblivious their pursuit can be at the expense of a loved one. Driven by their complex emotional needs, all five characters desperately want something from the other that each is sadly not willing or capable of giving.

A young man prepares to meet with a supervisor in an institution who will determine whether or not he is ready to go back into the world. He is helped by an eccentric, elderly woman who may or may not be his grandmother, a figment of his imagination, or just another patient . . .