Interview: Delia Ephron Finds the Humor in the Sadness in New Broadway Comedy Left on Tenth

Writer Delia Ephron’s life would be different without the Internet. For starters, she and her sister, the late writer/director Nora Ephron, would never have written the iconic romcom You’ve Got Mail. And the Internet led Ephron to an unexpected romantic connection with a man from her past, who emailed her out of the blue in response to an op-ed she wrote about disconnecting her late husband’s phone line.

These winding twists of fate are the subject of Ephron’s new Broadway play Left on Tenth at the James Earl Jones Theatre. Delia is played by Emmy winner Julianna Margulies; Peter, with whom she’d been on two dates as a teenager and fell in love as a senior citizen, is played by Peter Gallagher. It’s an odd experience for Ephron to watch her late-in-life romance play out, but it’s a universal story, one that doesn’t get told very often.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

You’re in the middle of rehearsals. How do you feel?
I’m just great. I mean, exhausted. Rehearsal is the most thrilling thing I have ever experienced, and it is also the most exhausting thing I’ve ever experienced. So, the combination is quite exciting. These are the most wonderful actors. They are so perfectly cast. Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher are friends, and they love each other. Peter Francis James and Kate MacCluggage are so talented, and the four of them get along so beautifully. There’s a nice magic in the rehearsal that you don’t always get. And of course, Susan Stroman creates a lovely mood.

What is it like to see your life go from novelistic form to dramatic form?
It is the strangest thing because I went through this incredible journey of loss, and then love again, and then threat, and the miracle of survival. It was very odd to look at my life and realize that there was the drama built right in. When I was writing the book, I knew it could also be a play. It started to take shape, but it is hard to be watching myself up there. It’s odd.

Did you feel like you had to compromise anything by consolidating it for the stage?
One of the nice things about doing something for stage is you start to collaborate, which I did from the very beginning with Susan Stroman. I took the book to Daryl Roth, and she said, “I think Susan Stroman is absolutely right for this.” I had grown up on musicals. It’s really the only music I know. To work with Susan is beyond thrilling.

And then my brain starts thinking, “Jerry [Kass, Ephron’s late husband] and I used to tap dance together, can there be some music in there? Can there be some dance?” That comes out of the collaboration. Magic starts to happen.

What was it like growing up in a family of writers?
My mother was a writer, and we’re talking in the 1950s when it wasn’t common. All she ever talked to us about was having careers. Really. She never mentioned falling in love. She never mentioned having children. She never mentioned anything but “you will leave Los Angeles.”  She thought it was a ridiculous place.

In families where there are lots of kids, you get a little label, and I was known as the funny one. Every time I said something funny, my dad said, “that’s a great line, write it down.” All four sisters became writers and not right away. I put it off to my 30s, Amy started in her 30s, then Hallie in her 40s. Nora was sort of born like a little rocket ship. But there was no question that that’s what we were raised for. We were raised to be who we could become.

Who read your work when you were starting out?
I had two great teachers in my life. Of course, Nora. She taught me many things. And my husband Jerry was a writer and he was doing Ballroom with Michael Bennett when I met him. He was a fantastic teacher. He understood drama. He taught me that in a scene, every character has an objective. You can write a scene and some character speaks louder to you than the other, so you gotta say to yourself, “what’s that other one thinking? What are they resisting? Are they going with it? Are they making a turn?” Jerry taught me a lot about drama.

Did it ever occur to you how life would be different if we didn’t have the Internet? Between You’ve Got Mail and how you met Peter, as depicted in Left on Tenth, it’s allowed for these unexpected connections.
Isn’t that wild? If there was no Internet, he couldn’t have really contacted me or found me. I wrote this piece about Verizon, then Peter reads it, and then he contacts me, and my life just takes an unbelievable turn because of it.

Why do you think he contacted you?
He was interested in me, but he remembered me from when you were young. I was 18 years old and he was 19. I do not remember our two dates at all, and he met my parents!

When I got that email, I Googled him to see that he was real. And then I realized he’d written two books on sexual harassment. He was an expert on sexual harassment, and he testified on behalf of abused women. Not only did he write me this completely charming note, but he was special, he was substantial. On every level this was a man I wanted to get to know.

Who do you think will connect most with this play?
It’s pretty much for everyone. It’s deeply romantic, but I think that it tells you that life is gonna throw at you all sorts of left field balls and you’re gonna have to have the bravery to catch them, throw them back, and not get defeated. That’s a lesson for almost anyone. This play is about bravery, really. It’s about just having the nerve to be very joyful. It’s about finding the joy and that’s pretty much for everyone.

How do you go about finding the humor in the darkness?
I think that I’m always aware of it even when it’s in the middle of something that’s upsetting. I’m not a stand-up comic. I don’t know how to create anything like that. But I do have a voice and my voice comes from observing the offbeat, the strange things. Your writing is your fingerprint and if you write properly then that’s your voice. In the middle of something that’s very upsetting I’ll notice if something is also funny.

I think empathy is probably one of the most important things a writer needs to have, and that’s a big thing with this play. I think the play takes you on a journey because you’re with me on this journey.