Everything is Wonderful
by Chelsea Marcantel

Name: Everything is Wonderful
Brand: Chelsea Marcantel
SKU: 9780573707261
Rating: 4.2 (1 reviews)

Everything is Wonderful Book Cover — Everything is Wonderful Cover

Highlights

Female

Male

120 mins Present Day Unit Set/Multiple Settings Contemporary Costumes/Street Clothes

Synopsis

When an Amish couple’s two sons are killed in a car accident, the family struggles to maintain their faith and cling to their way of life.

In an act of unfathomable forgiveness, they take in Eric, the wayward young driver of the car.

But Eric’s mistake cracks open the family’s dark history and brings back their eldest daughter, excommunicated five years earlier.

Miri finds her family in shambles, the man who killed her brothers living in the barn, and the man who drove her away intent upon marrying her younger sister.

Without a way forward, this insular community must seek to heal the deep wounds of the past, forcing everyone into a new kind of reckoning.

Press Reviews

"Thought-provoking, often beautiful, and in a quiet way, inspiring… it should not be missed."
— Broadway World

"Everything is Wonderful is challenging theatrical terrain that few plays tackle successfully. Ms. Marcantel does so, however, with beauty and grace."
— DC Metro Theater Arts

"A perceptive, character-rich drama about forgiveness in an Amish community."
— Washington Post

"A beautiful story of redemption and forgiveness within a family… A concept which could cause mass confusion in lesser hands is expertly developed here and fluidly reveals key plot developments and character information in a uniquely layered style."
— Broadway World

"You wouldn’t want to miss a single, plain spoken word of this magnificent wholehearted play."
— DC Theatre Scene

Characters

Character	Gender	Age	Description
Eric Late thirties/early forties. Unemployed, confused and adrift in the world. He is an addict, and there is a dark core at the center of him that he’s fighting very hard to keep buried. Deeply self-centered and self-loathing. Has a hard time finishing a sentence; when he changes directions mid-thought, that moment is indicated by (No…) in the script.	male	—	Late thirties/early forties. Unemployed, confused and adrift in the world. He is an addict, and there is a dark core at the center of him that he’s fighting very hard to keep buried. Deeply self-centered and self-loathing. Has a hard time finishing a sentence; when he changes directions mid-thought, that moment is indicated by (No…) in the script.
Abram Twenty-five years old in the present. Strapping, polite, charming and entitled. Clean-shaven to indicate he is an unmarried Amish man. Miri’s childhood sweetheart and also the reason she left the Amish. He is a very charming brute; the audience should like him.	female	—	Twenty-five years old in the present. Strapping, polite, charming and entitled. Clean-shaven to indicate he is an unmarried Amish man. Miri’s childhood sweetheart and also the reason she left the Amish. He is a very charming brute; the audience should like him.
Ruth Eighteen years old in the present. Miri’s youngest sibling and a version of Miri as she might have been as a “good Amish girl.” Ruth is sweet and good, but not simple. Unintentionally funny in spite of herself. More like her father in and around an Amish communitythan her mother.	female	—	Eighteen years old in the present. Miri’s youngest sibling and a version of Miri as she might have been as a “good Amish girl.” Ruth is sweet and good, but not simple. Unintentionally funny in spite of herself. More like her father in and around an Amish communitythan her mother.
Esther Late forties/early fifties in the present. Miri’s mother. A hard worker who suffers no fools and speaks her mind, and lives with a hereditary current of anger just below the surface. On the outside she seems simple and perhaps submissive, but she has a core of steel.	female	—	Late forties/early fifties in the present. Miri’s mother. A hard worker who suffers no fools and speaks her mind, and lives with a hereditary current of anger just below the surface. On the outside she seems simple and perhaps submissive, but she has a core of steel.
Jacob (Pronounced “YAK-ob”) Late forties/early fifties in the present. Miri’s father, an open and earnest man. Wears the distinctive short beard sans mustache that indicates a married Amish man. Believes the best way to make peace with the deaths of his children is to actively work on forgiveness. The tragedy has made him desperate to reconcile with his oldest daughter.	female	—	(Pronounced “YAK-ob”) Late forties/early fifties in the present. Miri’s father, an open and earnest man. Wears the distinctive short beard sans mustache that indicates a married Amish man. Believes the best way to make peace with the deaths of his children is to actively work on forgiveness. The tragedy has made him desperate to reconcile with his oldest daughter.
Miri Twenty-five years old in the present. Smart, plain-spoken, independent. Left the Amish at the age of twenty and coped by building a hard shell around her heart. More like her mother than her father.	female	—	Twenty-five years old in the present. Smart, plain-spoken, independent. Left the Amish at the age of twenty and coped by building a hard shell around her heart. More like her mother than her father.