Meryl Cohn

Provincetown Theater · 2024

The Fade-Away Advantage

How far would you go to keep a promise to a friend?

Set in a cozy beach cottage, two lifelong friends reunite to revisit an emergency plan they made many years ago. But which plan is it—the one that would have them living together for the rest of their lives or the one that would separate them forever?

Cast4 actors · 3 women, 1 man

Eventide Arts Kaplan Playwriting Prize · 2015

The Final Say

Whose story is it, anyway?

Naomi Goldstein might finally get her play about her grandmother’s war heroism produced—if only Holocaust Superstar: The Musical weren’t just about to open. When Naomi learns that the upcoming musical has an oddly similar storyline and was written by her former mentor, she must decide how far to go to protect her play and her beloved grandmother’s story. Who owns a story? Can an idea really be stolen? This comedy-drama attempts to answer those questions.

Cast6 actors · 4 women, 2 men

Provincetown Theater · 2012

Reasons to Live

A family wedding should be a happy occasion—but this is the family’s first gathering since tragedy struck

The Silversteins have a family tragedy behind them, yet everyone has gone silent. Stella, the mother, hopes to recreate days long past, when her daughters sang show tunes and her son still needed her. Her son Andrew lives upstairs in his pajamas in his mother’s home and appears to be selling something suspicious. His twin, Emily, brings her one-night stand to her sister’s wedding and tries to pass her off as her life partner. Their sister Jane, the jilted bride-to-be, can’t pull herself up off the floor and is unsure whether she wants to die or just relax. Everything appears to be falling apart until a surprise arrives at the front door and the family has an opportunity to find the connection and redemption they’ve been desperately seeking.

Cast6 actors · 5 women, 1 man

“Playwright Meryl Cohn’s thought-provoking and hilarious play was both brilliant and heartwarming.”

— Cape Cod Times · Favorite Plays of 2012

New York International Fringe Festival · 2010

And Sophie Comes Too

What happens when three adult children finally tell their comatose mother the truth—and she wakes up?

Will Sophie Abramowitz wake from her coma? Her daughters hope she stays asleep. Barbara wants to keep her wacky family’s calamity from interfering with her sex life or the pending adoption of her daughter; perfect Rose is less perfect than everyone thinks; and Sandra is transitioning to manhood. And Sophie Comes Too is a comedy about becoming fully conscious as one’s self.

Cast6 actors · 5 women, 1 trans man

Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater · 2009

Insatiable Hunger

Can a washed-up ’80s rocker face her past and take an unexpected shot at redemption with the family she once abandoned?

Max Stein, a washed-up ’80s rocker, comes face-to-face with her past and must pull herself together for the family she once abandoned. Conceived and written by Meryl Cohn, with music and lyrics by Billy Hough and Susan Goldberg, Insatiable Hunger is a rock musical comedy about second chances and finding family where you least expect it.

Cast2009 workshop cast · 9 actors · 6 women, 3 men

Provincetown Theater · 2008

The Siegels of Montauk

Will the truth shatter the Siegels—or finally set them free?

The Siegels of Montauk is a tragic comedy about three sisters who reunite at the family’s Montauk beach house in the wake of their father’s unexpected death. Oldest sister Wendy, a psychologist, is hiding from her clients. Youngest sister Sarah has discovered a dubious way to earn a living. Middle sister Julie can’t measure up to her hyper-motivated peers. When the sisters uncover a shocking secret about their deceased psychiatrist father, the reunion turns into a roller-coaster ride of surprises and conflict.

Cast6 actors · 5 women, 1 man

Provincetown Theater · 2006

Naked With Fruit

Can four women who lost the same love build a family out of the wreckage?

Isabel and Marilyn are mourning their recently deceased “third” — while Marilyn’s thirteen-year-old daughter holes up in her bedroom, communicating only by walkie-talkie. Isabel, living fast because her brain aneurysm means any moment could be her last, brings home a stranger to “audition” as the new third, and pesters a grumpy, grieving rabbi to help her convert to Judaism — but everyone in this play is more entangled than they know, and the secrets that surface will test them all. Naked With Fruit is a comedy about grief and the quest for love and family, and the alliances four women create that nourish and save them.

Cast4 actors · 4 women

Provincetown Theater · 2003

Almost Home

When your mother chooses someone else, who chooses you?

Jody’s mother Wendy has run off with a much-younger girlfriend, leaving behind two things she no longer wants: her daughter and her ex. Phoebe — a photographer with no legal claim to Jody and no discernible parenting instincts — is now the closest thing Jody has to an adult. Jody appoints herself Phoebe’s assistant and mounts a campaign to find romantic love. Nothing goes according to plan, least of all what happens with Phoebe.

Cast5 actors · 4 women, 1 man