Delia Ephron Shares Family Memories, Creative Advice Before Cleveland Visit

Long before sisters Nora and Delia Ephron worked together on "Sleepless in Seattle" and “You’ve Got Mail” they shared stories at the family dinner table with their screenwriter parents, Henry and Phoebe, in Hollywood.

“They brought a writer’s sensibility into the home,” Delia Ephron said. “I think the unspoken message was always: You’ll be writers.”

Both Delia and her late sister, Nora, carried on the family’s legacy writing books, plays, screenplays and articles.

Nora died in 2012 after battling acute myeloid leukemia. Delia recently revealed her own diagnosis of the same disease in an essay in the New York Times (this interview took place before the essay was published).

Delia describes working with her sister as “fantastic” and an “eerie” collaboration, since their parents wrote together.

She admits sibling rivalry appeared at times, mainly once they became more experienced and opinionated. 

“One of my feelings about collaboration is that it's always best to collaborate on something which you both have an equal investment in,” she said.

The sisters co-wrote “Love, Loss and What I Wore,” a play based on a book with the same name by Ilene Beckerman.

“The minute you read the book you started to think about your own life and the clothes you wore…,” she said. “What you wore when you fell in love or the day you were getting divorced.”

They wanted to bring that to the stage. They incorporated some of their own stories into the play, which has been performed all over the world.

“The bond between the actors on stage telling their stories and the audience suddenly remembering their own is very special,” she said.

Mamai Theatre presents “Love, Loss and What I Wore” Thursday and Friday at the Outcalt Theater at Playhouse Square in Cleveland.  Delia will introduce the play on Thursday evening.

She also speaks on creativity and collaboration at 2 p.m. Thursday at Drinko Hall at Cleveland State University as part of the AHA! Festival. The speaking  ev ent is free. 

Listen to the entire conversation with Delia Ephron: