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Love, Loss and What I Wore
A play of monologues and ensemble pieces about women, clothes, and memory covering all the important subjects - mothers, prom dresses, mothers, buying bras, mothers, hating purses and why we only wear black. Based on the bestselling book be Ilene Beckerman.
5W (doubling, flexible casting)
5W (doubling, flexible casting)
51 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2010
18 people are currently reading
8811 people want to read
About the author
Nora Ephron
51 books2,752 followersNora Ephron was an American journalist, film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, and blogger.
She was best known for her romantic comedies and is a triple nominee for the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay; for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally... and Sleepless in Seattle. She sometimes wrote with her sister, Delia Ephron.
She was best known for her romantic comedies and is a triple nominee for the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay; for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally... and Sleepless in Seattle. She sometimes wrote with her sister, Delia Ephron.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 110 reviews
January 23, 2024
Wonderfully girly and familiarly sad. I was instantly sweating in a kohl's dressing room with my mom in 2009 while Hey, Soul Sister by Train blasts and every mother-daughter in there bursts into violent, camisole wearing flames. The nuance and diversity of experiences this play lacks could be brilliantly redone, by someone like Carmen Maria Machado, today. Nora Ephron could've run Apple but Steve Jobs never could've written ten monologues about his turtle neck that painfully capture the femme coming of age experience told through clothes!
November 24, 2022
in my nora ephron era. and i'm happy :)
June 30, 2014
I finished this in a sitting, it has the Ephron lilt. I can see a lot of great audition monologues coming out of this, as soon as I finished it I turned around and bought a copy for myself.
February 27, 2023
el epítome de la feminidad que hay más mujer que vivir tu vida a través de tu ropa? nada
January 6, 2023
so so so good. most delicious vignettes centered around, well, love loss & what they wore. silly to serious to sad. and endlessly girly.
August 26, 2022
this was so relatable in so many ways … so worth the read imo
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May 3, 2017This play, based off a collection of short stories, is very close to my heart. Love, Loss and What I Wore is a woman's reflection on her life through her clothes and all the memories that are tied to them. This play is told in monologue form and can be read in sections which is good for lesson organization. I like this play for middle schoolers because, while we don't want people to judge us for our outsides, some of us find several aspects of our identity in the things we wear. This story, at its core, is a coming of age story as a woman describes how she found herself and re-found herself over and over again throughout her life every time she reinvented who she wanted to be. An aspect of identity that I want students to pick up on is the fact that people change who they are all the time and that's just a part of life. With this play I would be really interested in having students read this and compare it to an article about school uniforms. They could write an argument describing why clothes can be a significant aspect of defining who you are as a person.
June 5, 2025
Even if I can’t remember anything else, best believe I can always remember what I wore on any given day.
I love stories told through clothes and the link between clothing and memory and the way that we all foster relationships with different pieces of clothing in our lives - how cool is it that a piece of fabric can mean so much!
I love stories told through clothes and the link between clothing and memory and the way that we all foster relationships with different pieces of clothing in our lives - how cool is it that a piece of fabric can mean so much!
January 7, 2023
Funny, sad, and relatable. Super quick read about clothes, women, and their stories.
First play I’ve read since Shakespeare in high school. I thoroughly enjoyed!
First play I’ve read since Shakespeare in high school. I thoroughly enjoyed!
February 25, 2024
Literally perfect // relatable to every woman on some level, it felt like conversations and scenes of my life were written down so I could relive them and the feelings forever. Love and loss are huge feelings and we don’t talk nearly enough about how the best pieces in our closets give us a chance to hold those feelings in our hands, then put them on. Here’s to the perfect worn-out tee shirts, favorite jeans, shoes that hurt too much to wear or get rid of, and the tagged items that your mom bought, hanging in the closet, never to be worn.
July 21, 2022
Recommended by queen Carley Thorne and seeing as I am forever in my Nora Ephron era I ordered a copy from this weird theater website since that seems to be the only way you can find the play.
I don't read plays a lot but this one was really cool and the original cast described on the first page was stacked. Wish I got to see the performance.
But I liked the concept and read it in one sitting at the beach.
I don't read plays a lot but this one was really cool and the original cast described on the first page was stacked. Wish I got to see the performance.
But I liked the concept and read it in one sitting at the beach.
July 10, 2012
Fun to read and loved the references to fashions of my youth. As a whole play the vignettes are hit and miss. Some I loved.
March 6, 2023
This would be amazing live. Fav characters: Lisa and Amanda (naturally)
April 1, 2023
When a person is cast in a play, a person must read the play! So excited to be playing Gingy at The Lakewood Playhouse this May.
June 25, 2023
3.5/5 stars. Loved it when they talked about their relationship to their moms and how it affected the way they all interact with fashion 🥹
June 26, 2024
I didn’t expect this to be so poignant! It’s one of those ideas that sneaks up behind and really gets you. I startled the hub by laughing out loud (couldn’t gain control!) after he dozed off. But then I also found myself trying to rein the tears in, waiting in the dentist’s office. Lesson: save this one for an evening on the couch.
March 30, 2014
I identified with this so much. I would love to direct this
July 10, 2016
Nora Ephron's voice is so distinctive and inspiring to me. Women's stories are so important and wonderful and this is aces.
October 17, 2024
The hardest clothes to get rid of are the ones we remember wearing during important, transformative, or painful moments of our lives. This is exactly an exploration of that—and the intersections clothes have with those emotions, relationships, and women being inspired by and within our relationships with other women. I also loved the short years she spent at Simmons (my grad school!) and in the Boston area. Succinct, sweet. Four stars.
November 17, 2022
Amazing show-stopping loved boots the house everyone read immediately
Seriously so good. Stand-alone memoir-esque vignettes/monologues about the feminine experience, relationships, maternal relationships, and self-identity all centered around clothes. So fun to read, actually giggled to myself and cried at times. Such a unique way to present a raw depiction of femininity.
Seriously so good. Stand-alone memoir-esque vignettes/monologues about the feminine experience, relationships, maternal relationships, and self-identity all centered around clothes. So fun to read, actually giggled to myself and cried at times. Such a unique way to present a raw depiction of femininity.
March 18, 2024
This is going on my top 10 books/reads of all time. What a clever, heartfelt, gutting and funny play. Ephron impresses me with every move. So so well done! I’m going to re-read this many times I can feel it.
December 17, 2019
The Ephron sisters' take on Beckerman's arty memoir in dresses. Funnier than the work it's based on, with additional material worth reading for.
August 9, 2023
so very relatable and so very hilarious
December 24, 2023
i was prescribed media that is empowering to my self image lmao. this was just the fix.
considering photographing my clothes as artifacts of my memories. feeling artistically inspired, stay tuned.
considering photographing my clothes as artifacts of my memories. feeling artistically inspired, stay tuned.
July 6, 2022
Liked not loved.
Read
March 16, 2023the importance of the ordinary, the memories that come from objects <3 I was honestly surprised with how much I connected with this play, now I’m thinking about clothes from my own life
May 27, 2023
waited 8 months to get this from the library..and now i don’t want to return it🫡 so funny and charming and feminine and sad sometimes, you will probably like this if you are a girl
February 5, 2024
Picturing myself on stage with a group of my girl friends and the stories we’d share about our clothes
“I’m not somebody who dreamed of my wedding from a young age. I did not have visions. I just wanted a dress I could twirl around in.”
“I’m not somebody who dreamed of my wedding from a young age. I did not have visions. I just wanted a dress I could twirl around in.”
January 6, 2014
I recently read something I liked online by Delia Ephron. I don't remember what it was, but it was enough for me to look her up and remember about Nora Ephron and request a few of their things at the library.
I walked over to the library on my lunch break a few days ago, since I'd been told that one of my items had come in, and was surprised to find that "Love, Loss, and What I Wore" was in fact a very short play, not a book as I was expecting. In my haste of requesting, I remembered that I'd heard of this title but nothing else about it. That was kind of a funny moment and reminded me to pay more attention, but I definitely wasn't disappointed!
I ended up pulling it out at the gym that evening because I was looking for something to distract me (woo! remember that theme?). It's quite short (finished it in one short-ish gym session) and really hilarious. The good kind of "chick lit," I guess, reminding us how Western society is fucked but in a laughing way. Girlfriends talking about body image and clothing and all that.
My favorite part was probably how several of the characters related certain pieces of clothing to certain memories/events in their past, which is something I do with all sorts of items and probably why I am a hoarder.
In short, I would love to see this performed! Looking forward to some more Ephron works showing up at the library in future days.
A super quick read, but a good one! Really speaks to me as a woman about how differently society treats women in different outfits and how it fucks us up. Feel like it would be especially fun to read in a stereotypical wine-filled book club setting.
I walked over to the library on my lunch break a few days ago, since I'd been told that one of my items had come in, and was surprised to find that "Love, Loss, and What I Wore" was in fact a very short play, not a book as I was expecting. In my haste of requesting, I remembered that I'd heard of this title but nothing else about it. That was kind of a funny moment and reminded me to pay more attention, but I definitely wasn't disappointed!
I ended up pulling it out at the gym that evening because I was looking for something to distract me (woo! remember that theme?). It's quite short (finished it in one short-ish gym session) and really hilarious. The good kind of "chick lit," I guess, reminding us how Western society is fucked but in a laughing way. Girlfriends talking about body image and clothing and all that.
My favorite part was probably how several of the characters related certain pieces of clothing to certain memories/events in their past, which is something I do with all sorts of items and probably why I am a hoarder.
In short, I would love to see this performed! Looking forward to some more Ephron works showing up at the library in future days.
A super quick read, but a good one! Really speaks to me as a woman about how differently society treats women in different outfits and how it fucks us up. Feel like it would be especially fun to read in a stereotypical wine-filled book club setting.
May 30, 2025
i think i need to put on a play
Displaying 1 - 30 of 110 reviews