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Theatre Orangeville presents Anne Marie Scheffler who is ‘Suddenly Single!’

September 1, 2022   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

“I’m speaking to my life experience of watching Leave it to Beaver. I thought we should be June Cleaver, be cheer leaders,” said Anne Marie Scheffler as an opener to our Zoom interview with her and Theatre Orangeville artistic director, David Nairn.

We were talking about her upcoming show, “Suddenly Single” on at Theatre Orangeville for an extended weekend of September 15 to 18.

At 53 years old, Ms. Scheffler brings liberation: “Women in their 50’s are waking up to see that the marriage they thought was for life might not be; but just because your marriage is over doesn’t [mean you] need to feel your life is over – it’s really just beginning. I am super serving women my age, 35 and over, and things are changing. Maybe young women think about going out but now so do older women,” she commented. “We’ve been expanding what it means to be a mother.

“Women my age are bursting open to have a new life.”

Suddenly Single, written and starring Ms. Scheffler is a reflection of her own life’s story when she found herself divorced and wondering what was next until her BFF’s started to explain the facts of a new life to her. She puts all those characters as fiction delivering life in this fun show. 

She grew up in Hockley Valley and told us she wanted to be a wife and a mother but as she explained, “My ambition outgrew my marriage and, really you just have to love.”

In marriage, she wanted to be herself and she wanted to be a wife and a mother.

Soon enough, she learned that a woman does not have to choose anything – just love…

Suddenly Single introduces us to her friend, Kendra who explains to Anne Marie, “You don’t want to stay married.”

“This is a hero’s journey,” she declared. “An ordinary woman can see that life’s a buffet; the point is to make sure you understood: if all you do is be your authentic self and to truly love, you might even end up being friends with your ex.”

It is the other women in her life who lead Ms. Scheffler to realize that she can want what she wants.

Suddenly Single, she promises us, is “A wonderful ladies’ night out. We laugh and we help each other – because why not?”

The show asks the questions and follows the time lines between finally calling it quits and starting again. The truth sits with the decisions about whether one’s life is ended and how long to wait before having sex again. Does one have to heal first? 

In the beginning of the post- divorce days, “My default was to not have sex, just to sit and cry for over a year. When my character says okay, I guess my marriage is over. 

How long before you can go out, the Terri character asks her, ‘How’s Dale’s [ex-husband] theory going?’

So, her very lovely friends take her drinking and dancing while reminding her, women go to therapy – men go for female companionship right away.

This show is the anecdote to all that.

Where a divorced woman finds her friends who are in relationships do not invite her to their dinners and parties any more, Ms. Scheffler’s recommendation is: “You gotta get a Kendra!”

Women in their 50’s were not given the opportunity, she observed, to be sexy, feeling that they had to be young sexy but she toted the news that a person does not have to be “young” to be sexy, admitting, “I had to wrap my head around sex for sex’s sake, is not bad.”

Suddenly Single is so empowering. “My kids are here. Their dad is putting in twice as much effort and then you get to date without worrying.”

Still, her friend insisted, “No one’s got authority over you,” and still, the Anne Marie character was judging herself. So, what happens next?

Because she has such a good relationship with “my children, three boys, now I can date for many reasons that don’t include getting married.”

Otherwise, she had to get over what her parents would think, what her friends would think except for those girlfriends, concluding, “once you’re good for you, you’ve got it all.”

Anne Marie Scheffler said, “My children see me as someone who didn’t rush in and replace the spouse and I became a really present parent while wanting to be whole inside. For the first time in my life, I can be who I want to be, to ask what do I even want? I want to go into my own castle.”

When Ms. Scheffler is touring, their children are with their father. During the pandemic they were with her the whole time.

“I love my kids,” she told us. “I had a wonderful mother/children pandemic. Whatever I missed when I was touring, I got back during the pandemic.

“I think there’s divine timing, when you’re a single mom.”

When the “narrative” chases, Celine Dione comes back into the show. The truth is we have no idea how right this is but career-wise Ms. Scheffler lets us known how her life is sorted out. By the end of the show, we come to understand its whole message.

David Nairn is very excited to be welcoming Anne Marie Scheffler back to her own stomping grounds, back to Theatre Orangeville. Tickets are selling well and her friends and family are thrilled to come and see her show.

“It’s like the biggest event of my life!” she claimed, “A rock and roll show for women!”

On the tender subject of misguided presumption, she wanted to make the point, “I do want to say when you are in your own power – you won’t let those lower vibrations into your energy field. I think I radiate a feeling of no.”

Suddenly Single are stories from the author’s own life. It is two acts of 45 minutes each with an intermission.

And we should all go: “This is a very beautiful journey, from wife to not wife and from disempowered to superpower.”

For details and tickets, to www.theatreorangeville.ca or call the box office on 519-942-3423. Also available in person at the town hall, 87 Broadway or the Visitors Centre at Buena Vista and Hwy 10.

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