The Women of Cedar Creek

I wrote this dysfunctional family play over 30 years ago, thinking it was a play I was compelled to write this very personal story then would put it away in a drawer and move on to other work. Imagine my surprise when so many responded, recognizing their own families. A great lesson for this young playwright: that the universal is found in the specific and not the other way around.  This week the play was revived once again in California and I once again heard from many who said it mirrored their own mother or sister or themselves. I realized then and there that as long as there are dysfunctional families, this old play would be timeless.

The Women of Cedar Creek is a comedy-drama set in Texas in the mid-seventies. Three generations of Texas women come together to persuade their aging mother to leave Cedar Creek, her home of fifty years. Tension builds as each of the proud women struggles to maintain composure by dredging up the past and condemning each other’s lifestyle choices. Finally, secrets explode during a twenty-four-hour period, revealing the love-hate relationships of family.

Excellent! Big Bravos! Your play is a masterpiece…so well written: clever, funny, poignant, sad…it has it all.                    –   Noel Paul Stookey, Singer & Songwriter (Paul in Peter, Paul, & Mary)

Such a delight! The Women of Cedar Creek is a lovely, touching, funny, sad play. Hooray for you!                                          -Amanda McBroom, singer and songwriter of The Rose

The moral here is “Dare to be personal”.