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By Teri Rizvi

Allison and Margaret Engel fondly remember their mother sitting at the breakfast table with the Cleveland Plain Dealer in hand, shaking with laughter.

"She could only manage to get out two words — Erma Bombeck," recalled Allison, who has collaborated with her twin sister on a one-woman play, Erma Bombeck: At Wit's End.

Starring stage and screen actress Barbara Chisholm, the play enjoyed its world premiere Oct. 9-Nov. 8 at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., as part of the Women's Voices Theater Festival. On April 1, Chisholm and the playwrights will bring a staged reading of the solo show to the University of Dayton's sold-out Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. After the performance, the playwrights will join the Bombeck family on stage for a behind-the-scenes look at Erma's life and enduring appeal.

The humorous production is described as "a look at one of our country's most beloved voices, who captured the frustrations of her generation by asking, 'If life is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing in the pits?'" Chisholm, who portrays Erma, most recently appeared in the Oscar-winning 2014 film, Boyhood.

"Erma Bombeck: At Wit's End is a loving tribute to the journalist who was lauded for opening up the secret world of the mother and housewife, to the public figure who used her budding fame to support the Equal Rights Amendment, and to the woman who loved her family. The play is full of Bombeck's own words and humor and is written for an audience who already know and love her work," according to a review by dctheatrescene.com.

This is the playwrights' second one-act play that celebrates women humorists. In 2010, the two journalists and authors brought the feistiness of syndicated Texas political columnist Molly Ivins to life in Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins. Kathleen Turner starred in the critically acclaimed production on stages in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Washington, D.C.

After the premiere of Red Hot Patriot, Aaron Priest, Bombeck's agent and longtime friend, contacted the playwrights about their interest in bringing Erma to life on stage.

At the peak of her career, Bombeck's "At Wit's End" column appeared in more than 900 newspapers, reaching 30 million readers. Her entertaining essays hung on refrigerator doors around the country because they captured so perfectly the foibles of family life. She's arguably the most famous graduate of the University of Dayton, which honors her legacy through the popular biennial Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. In 1996, she died of complications from a kidney transplant.

"It was such a delight to remember and read all of Erma's books and columns," Margaret said. "She is so witty and gets at the secret life of a family that makes us laugh in recognition."

To research At Wit's End, the sisters read her immense body of work — thousands of columns and a dozen books— and viewed "Good Morning America" clips from her 11 years on the show. They perused the University of Dayton's online Erma museum for photographs, speeches and other material and interviewed Erma's husband Bill, secretary Norma Born and the three children, Matt, Betsy and Andy.

"We had an avalanche of material to work with," Allison said. "The family has been so wonderful as far as being generous with their time and remembrances."

Matt Bombeck, a screenwriter in Los Angeles, said the family appreciated hearing Erma's words performed. "The Engel sisters were absolutely the right playwrights to bring our mom's humor to the stage," he said. "We hope the play not only makes audiences laugh, but gives people a deeper insight into her life."

The Engels' appreciation for Bombeck grew enormously as they worked to translate her life for the stage. "We found her remarkable," Allison said. "She was so well known that magazine polls showed her right up there with the pope among admired people, yet she didn't go Hollywood. When the kids came home from school, she was just mom. We tried to portray that in the play. To be ordinary and have such remarkable fame, it's almost impossible to pull that off."

Bombeck poked fun at motherhood and housekeeping during a time of social change for women, drawing a legion of like-minded women as fans. "Many people probably don't realize that she spent almost two years of her own time on her own dime stumping for the Equal Rights Amendment," Margaret said. "She lived through the Depression and that experience of seeing what her (widowed) mother went through also informed her activism."

Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park will close its 2016-2017 season with Erma Bombeck: At Wit's End. The show plays May 6-June 4, 2017.

— Teri Rizvi

Teri Rizvi is the founder and director of the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop at the University of Dayton, where she also serves as executive director of strategic communications. (Illustration by Ed Fotheringham, courtesy of Arena Stage. Photo credit: Mark Berndt)