Nancy Gall-Clayton

Emil, 50 and downsized out of his job, begins wearing cargo shorts and dreaming of growing fruit in Costa Rica. He hires Paul for advice, using a ratty dollar bill, but leaving his datebook (and ticket) in Paul's office. Emil’s wife Annie doesn’t understand why Emil is so distracted, and – though she’s not really that kind of gal – she gets her courage up and goes into a lingerie store for an item or two to get Emil’s attention. The ratty dollar bill, Emil’s datebook, and the bag of lingerie are lost and found several times. At the end of this fast-paced comedy, there are two happy couples and a rake wearing a nightgown.

The wedding dress has been worn four times -- twice by Opal's mother and twice by her sister, so of course, Opal, a passionate recycler, will wear it tomorrow even though the dress doesn't fit, Opal decided just hours ago to marry the groom, and worst of all in her mother’s view, Opal met her future husband online. Opal sister’s Nicole, a journalist and a hoarder, arrives while Karen, their mother, is pinning up the hem. Tempers flare, secrets are revealed, but even so, all have at least a chance of living happily ever after.

It’s quirky, fun, independent Bernice Sizemore’s 70th birthday, so why has workaholic daughter Carol gift wrapped a gun? And what has motivated change-of-life baby Evan to suddenly appear after 8 years of silence? A former food editor for the newspaper, Bernice still makes her weird health tonics, does yoga, rides a bike, and square dances (as a man – there never are enough). She also has a big secret that means Carol and Evan must move their childhood treasures out of the basement. As the three sort through boxes from earlier times, they also begin to uncover their own pasts. They finally understand, accept, and love one another and also love themselves.

“The Colored Door at the Train Depot” is based on the life of the first African American to command whites in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps during World War II. Born in 1919 in rural Kentucky and raised by a grandmother who could neither read nor write, Anna Mac Clarke won several battles for racial justice in the military and seemed to be defying all the odds — until death took her at age 24.

"I’m Wearing My Own Clothes!" is a memory play bookended by scenes featuring two 10-year-old school girls who are writing about Dr. Mary Edwards Walker (1832-1919) for a school project. Raised by liberal parents who put their daughters in pants to do chores, Walker never took hers off despite frequent arrests for "impersonating a man." She was an ardent supporter of abolition, dress reform, and suffrage. Walker offered her services to the Union Army in 1861. Prejudice against her gender and clothes kept her from a commission though she volunteered in hospitals and on battlefields for three years. While serving the 52nd Ohio Infantry, she was arrested as a spy and imprisoned for four months in Castle Thunder, a notorious Confederate prison in Richmond, Virginia. Near the end of the war, Walker was finally mustered into the Union Army in Louisville, Kentucky, where she oversaw the Woman’s Military Prison Hospital. Recommendations by two generals resulted in Walker receiving the Medal of Honor in 1865, which she wore every day until her death, and she remains (in 2017) the only woman to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

The lives of two young couples are unalterably changed when General Ulysses S. Grant issues an order on December 17, 1862, banishing all Jews from a military district that includes Paducah, Kentucky, where 30 Jewish families reside. A Paducah merchant, Cesar Kaskel, organizes an exodus by boat to Cincinnati, where Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise and other Jews help. Kaskel then takes a train to Washington where he meets with President Lincoln who had been unaware of Grant’s order. (Though based on historical incidents, the play is intended as a dramatic work rather than a documentary.)

Marge has finally given up on her children ever doing what she planned for them and has, after three years of widowhood, decided to “be me.” Rebecca, the single 40-year-old social justice activist, has just been inseminated with Jewish sperm. Clark, who has been changing college majors for a dozen years, reveals his desire to enlist and marry Violet, a wacky shiksa he met through a dating website. Marge finds herself in the office of the new rabbi asking for guidance. Discovering that he’s single, she invites him for brunch in hopes that he and Rebecca will get together. Love, Jell-O, knit dresses, and bagels conquer all, and the characters come together with a deepened sense of self, family, and spiritual connection.