Interview: LEFT ON TENTH Playwright Delia Ephron Is Making Miracles On Broadway

The romantic comedy is alive and well on Broadway in the charming new play, Left On Tenth. The dramedy, starring Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher, is an adaptation of the 2022 memoir from novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and bona fide rom-com icon, Delia Ephron, co-writer of the classic films, You've Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle.

The play tells the story of Delia, a writer dealing with the aftermath of the death of her spouse. After a series of unfortunate events with Verizon inspire a column in The New York Times, Delia finds herself in the midst of an email-centric courtship of her own, when a recent widower and Jungian psychologist, Peter, reaches out in response, kicking off a late-in-life love story that gives way to a battle for survival, and ultimately, a celebration of life.

With a production from Tony Award-winner, Susan Stroman-- evoking all of the warmth and style of the beloved films Delia co-wrote with her sister, Nora-- the play marks Ephron's Broadway debut, making her the fourth member of her family to do so.

We had the opportunity to chat with this acclaimed author, essayist, screenwriter, and now, Broadway playwright about the process, her love of musical theatre, watching Susan Stroman teach tap dancing, dog casting, and more. Find out how Delia turned her tale of unexpected love and untimely illness into a Broadway miracle in our chat here:

When did you decide to adapt the book? What about it felt right for the stage as opposed to a film?

I was writing a book and you just get a feeling about what something is or isn't. I had lived a perfect drama. I mean, it's a ridiculous thing to say, but because I write drama, I could see it. There was the loss, and then the love again, and then the threat to it, the terrible illness, and then the survival and all the friendship and the dogs. I just knew it was a gorgeous story after I had lived this crazy thing and I had this feeling it was a play. I had never tried a full length play like this. I had done Love, Loss and What I Wore, but that's storytelling, really. It's lovely, but it's women sitting at music stands and telling their stories to the audience. So I thought, God, I'd really like to try this. I knew Daryl Roth because she produced Love, Loss, and What I Wore and she loves stories about women. She's an exceptional producer. She likes stories of substance. I knew this was a serious piece. So I showed it to her and I said, "I think this is a play." And she agreed it was, and she thought that Susan Stroman would be the right person to direct it. She had recently seen a play that Susan Stroman had directed that was a very serious play called Dot, about a family dealing with illness.

I grew up on musicals. I mean, that's the only music I know. I was belting out Guys and Dolls when I was five years old. So, I just couldn't believe I was going to even get to meet her, much less work with her. We met and it was very magical. Daryl also knew that Susan Stroman's beloved husband, Mike, had died of the same disease that my sister had died of and that I had battled. So, if you find truth with people, if it's personal, it gives it a depth that you just can't have otherwise. So it was this very magical thing for me, and, I hope, for Susan Stroman, because she's so magnificent.

Watching the show, it felt to me like it spoke to a very joyful process. What was the experience like in the rehearsal room?

It was this amazing collaboration. Everybody loved everybody, and that is just as rare as rare can be. One of the wonderful things about collaboration is like, Susan Stroman has such a history as a choreographer, and I just started thinking, my late husband and I, we used to tap dance, right? We took tap dancing lessons, we used to tap dance together. So suddenly that's going in. Who you work with changes your imagination. And I think the play has a beautiful score. She's very musical and, and there's just this fantastic collection of music in it that I love.

And also it's an unspoken rule that if you have Susan Stroman in a room, you have to find any excuse to tap dance at all. 

One of the great thrills for me was to watch her teach Julianna Margulies to tap dance. I just couldn't believe it. Watching a person just so in their element, you know? Susan Stroman teaching tap dancing. Anyway, that was very gorgeous. There were many moments when I was just pinching myself in rehearsal.

This a play that casts real people that you know and love, your husband, Peter, as well as some dear friends, as its characters. What is the reaction of these people to their new lives as characters in a Broadway play?

Fortunately Peter is a retired psychiatrist because otherwise it would be a non-starter. We could never have done it because they don't reveal themselves that way professionally. But he is retired and it's so much fun for him. He's having the greatest time. Everybody loves him, how could you not? On opening night, he was on the stage with us, and there is, as we know, a certain amount of suffering in this play, and when you get to make this out of that, you just feel so lucky. And he feels very lucky about it. My girlfriends have all been fantastic... You know, girlfriends, they're like your warriors.

Did you and Peter spend any time with Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher in order for them to get a sense of who you are as people? Or did you treat Delia and Peter solely characters and let the actors find their own version of this relationship?

Well, they both came on when the play was written, so I just wanted them to find it through the play. They have such incredible chemistry. If you don't have that in a romance, and that's what this is, you're nowhere. And they just have that magic. So I just let them find it, really.

You also have some actors in this show of the four-legged variety, and dogs are very near and dear to your heart. They're a big part of your work. They're a big part of the story. Did you get a say in dog casting?

The man who does dog casting on Broadway, his name is Bill Berloni. He is so incredible, and all the dogs he cast, they're all rescue dogs. We had this very sad thing happen, which was the first two dogs who were in it were, it was Dulcey and Charlie, but Dulcey had been rescued from a puppy mill, and her feet had never touched the ground in five years. So needless to say, Broadway was not a perfect match for her, and every time she had to go on stage, she got too scared. So he instead found her a lovely home where she's very happy. Now we have Nessa Rose in that part. Nessa Rose has toured all over the, the US in Wicked, as we know [laughs]. She'll go out there on stage and she's a fearless dog on stage. Then Charlie is this adorable, adorable dog. I love dogs. I think they make the world more magical. They're just extraordinary.

You are the fourth member of your immediate family to have a play on Broadway. What does it mean to you to carry the Ephron legacy forward in this way?

Broadway was a dream too big to have...Broadway, honestly, it was just too big to imagine. And there's this moment where you do a workshop before you do the play and you invite backers, and you invite the all-powerful Shuberts, and you have to get a theater and everything. I'm on 42nd Street and out the window is Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, you know?...And I just, I just couldn't believe it, you know? I just had to just pinch myself again and again.

Watching the play, it felt like such a celebration of hope and of life, but moreso to me it felt like a celebration of all things You. Your love, your survival, your relationship to your sister, the ways in which Broadway has played such a huge role in your life, your friends; how you fell in love over email, having written a film about two people who fall in love over email. To me it feels more than anything like a celebration of serendipity and the ways in which all the threads of life can sort of come together into a big bunch of balloons. How does it feel to be able to collect all of that and give it to the world in this way?

I think that's beautiful what you're saying. Thank you. And don't forget my love of New York, right? Which is also in the play! I think I've begun to believe now that every tiny piece of luck in life is not luck. It's a little miracle. So like, if you get on the subway platform and the subway comes right away, that is not luck. That's a little miracle. Then there are miracles that are so big that you can't even fantasize them. They're so big. And what you just described about this play being a celebration of life, in general, and of my life, in specific, is the biggest miracle I've had. Sometimes I sit in that theater and I really, truly can't believe it. It's so joyful. The other wonderful thing about it is just how the making of it has been such a magical thing. Susan Stroman is just extraordinary and she attracts the most wonderful collaborators, and our actors get along beautifully. I mean, every single piece of this has been joyful. Work, but joyful work, you know? So I feel like there are these little tiny miracles and then there are this big, gigantic miracles. And I got lucky enough to have one.

About Delia Ephron

Delia Ephron is a bestselling author, screenwriter, and playwright. Her movies include You've Got Mail (1998), The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005), Hanging Up (2000) (based on her novel), and Michael (1996). She has written novels for adults and teenagers, books of humor, including "How to Eat Like a Child", and essays. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, O the Oprah Magazine, Vogue and MORE, and The Huffington Post. Recently, she collaborated with her sister, Nora Ephron on a play, "Love, Loss, and What I Wore", which ran for two years off-Broadway, and has been performed in cities across the US as well as in cities around the world, including Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Sydney.