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I joked that I had fallen into my own romantic comedy.
Photographed by Irving Penn,Vogue, December 1968
But the stakes almost instantly became much bigger.
Three months into this new relationship, I was diagnosed with a fierce and often fatal leukemia.
Peter flew east the same night.
We got married in the hospital.
After I miraculously survived, I knew, being a writer, that I had been given a gift.
I could write it.
I believe that nearly everyone who survives a serious disease has PTSD.
In the over-50s, it is rampant.
And the need for love and laughter is as strong as ever.
I believed that my story could resonate and give more people reason to hope.
I wrote about friendship and how it had buoyed me.
While I was writingLeft on Tenthas amemoir, I suspected that it could also be written as a play.
Peter was a fantastic hero, leukemia a frightening foe.
And I knew also that I could find ways to make it funny.
Daryl produces plays of all sorts, but she especially loves womens stories and stories of substance.
She agreed that it was suited to adaptation and suggested Susan Stroman to direct.
Susan Stroman is a brilliant director as well as a choreographer, the winner of many Tony Awards.
Most often she directs musical theater.
I was raised on musicals: The first one I saw wasGuys and Dolls.
I can still recite lines fromWest Side Story: Where you going to find Nardo?
At the dance tonight, at the gym.
But the gyms neutral territory… And so forth.
I cant carry a tune, but I belted out show tunes when I was a kid.
Meeting Susan Stroman was a thrill for me.
Stroman and I acknowledged that in our first meeting.
Personal, in my opinion, often brings out the best.
This out of that.
Susan Stroman is called Stro.
Everyone who knows her calls her Stro.
I couldnt imagine doing that.
This sounds disingenuous, but it is true.
I asked her in our first meeting if I had to call her Stro.
She said yes, I did.
It took a while.
It was as if I was showing off.
Jerry, my late husband, and I tap-danced.
So working with Stro, I thought, Why not a bit of that?
So into the play it went.
When I was a child, storytelling was a big deal at family dinners.
My parents, who were screenwriters, were raising writers, almost as a mandate.
All four of us sisters became writers.
Thats a great line, write it down, my dad would say.
Thats a great title, write it down.
Ive spent my life writing down titles before I knew what they went with.
Left on Tenth was something I came up with years ago.
Like all good titles, it had metaphors tucked into it.
When my life took many left turnssome perilous, some wondrousthat title became meaningful to me.
Its as if my imagination was ahead of my life.
Having a play on Broadway was not a dream of mine.
It was too big, actually.
When I was a young writer in a family of writers, I set modest goals for myself.
My first book was a craft book,The Adventurous Crocheter.
Then I tried to master essays.
Ill try a novel next, I thought.
Each form was harder than the previous.
I began doing drafts of the play, meeting with Stro and rewriting with her notes.
I had met Julianna in a magical way.
I was reading her memoir,Sunshine Girl, and I realized that she lived in Greenwich Village.
I thought, We live near each other.
I wonder why Ive never seen her?
We did a two-week workshop in a loft space on 42nd Street.
On every floor of the building, it seemed, a different Broadway show was rehearsing.
Out the window I had a view of Madame Tussauds wax museum.
Next door was a shop with every kind of mug or T-shirt a tourist might want.
A workshop is when the director sets the play on its feet.
Every day I saw Stro bring scenes to life.
I saw her teach Julianna Margulies to tap-dance.
I got to watch myself fall in love, almost die, and survive.
Peter Gallagher asked me, Are you all right?
How is this for you?
And I thought, This out of that.
And it is such a happy play.
All the men involved in this play are named Peter.
My Peter: Peter Rutter.
Broadway Peter: Peter Gallagher.
Its quite confusing and magical.
My Peter…how did he react to finding himself in a play perhaps headed to Broadway?
He is, I should point out, retired.
But at this time in his life, it is a fantastic adventure.
Hes a man of unfettered curiosity.
Hes written two books about sexual harassment.
Hes testified in court on behalf of abused women.
His unfaltering dedication and care when I became sick are also dramatized.
Its this out of that for him as well.
Once we had the workshop and the cast, all we needed was a theater.
The play is intimate, so a large theater for a musical wouldnt do.
We needed something more intimate.
The Shuberts own most of those theaters, I learned.
Would they give us one?
The email from Daryl Roth arrived: Were opening at the James Earl Jones in October.
I was so happy, I started crying.
Left on Tenthbegins previews on September 26.
It opens on October 23.
