Ilene Beckerman and Michael Disher Team Up for 'Gingy's Diaries'

Back in 2013, Michael Disher, founder of Center Stage theater company, directed a production of “Love, Loss, and What I Wore” at the Southampton Cultural Center.

The play, written by Nora and Delia Ephron, premiered in August 2008 at the Bridgehampton Community House as a benefit for the renovation of Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater before it headed to Off-Broadway. The script was based on the charming 1995 book written and illustrated by Ilene Beckerman (a.k.a. “Gingy”), a woman in her 60s who shared with readers the details of the various outfits she was wearing during milestone events in her life. From proms and first dates, to third weddings and tragic deaths, each outfit is associated with an emotional memory of her life.

When Disher produced “Love, Loss, and What I Wore” in 2013, he was surprised to learn that Beckerman herself, who lives in New Jersey, wanted to take part in the show. Of course, he agreed, and the two have been close friends ever since.

Fast-forward to 2025 and a partnership between the pair that is so strong that this week, Disher and Beckerman are teaming up again to present “Gingy’s Diaries” a workshop version of a brand new, original theatrical offering based on Beckerman’s more recent musings.

The show will be presented at the Southampton Arts Center from Friday, May 2, through Sunday, May 4, by a cast of seven women and one man (who acts as the narrator). Together, they share Beckerman’s insights into what it’s like to age in this society. Through the pages penned by Beckerman, the cast relays her personal memories and observations which Disher has arranged into a cohesive theatrical offering.

“I started working on this in June of last year,” Disher explained. “The structure came with the material. Everything about this has been evolutionary. One thing leads to another and another.

“I promised her I would not rewrite anything,” he added of Beckerman’s words. “I love verbiage, she doesn’t. It’s her life, her diary. She said, ‘How you pieced this together is amazing.’”

And if one thing is clear in this show, as she nears a milestone birthday, it’s that Beckerman still has plenty to say.

“I’ll be 90 in June, my eyesight is going,” confessed Beckerman, whose birthday is June 15. Disher will turn 70 the day before, on June 14. “I have no censors with him.”

A large part of why Disher and Beckerman click as a team may have to do with their own personal struggles. When she was 12, Beckerman lost her mother and went to live with her grandparents in an apartment over a stationery story on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Married three times, she raised five children and had a sixth who died as a baby.

More recently, Beckerman has had to cope with the loss of her oldest daughter, Isabelle, who died of cancer in 2015, and her husband, Stanley, who died in 2023.

“Our friendship and us working together is totally separate from anything else in her life,” Disher said. “She’s told me she can tell me things she couldn’t tell anyone — not her husband, not her children. She said, ‘Why can I tell you anything?’ I said, ‘Maybe because I don’t judge it. Maybe it’s meant to be and maybe you needed a best friend.’

“She is no holds barred,” Disher added. “I think the whole reasoning behind wanting to do this piece is that she got to this point in life where she realizes that her mind is still sharp as ever, but the body is failing.”

In recent years, Disher has faced his own health struggles, with a 2018 stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis followed by the removal of a malignant brain tumor which has left him with mobility issues. Beckerman admits that her friendship with Disher is unlike any she has experienced in her long life.

“I’m gonna be very honest. This is the first time I’ve had a relationship with a gay guy where all the crap that has to do with flirting, sexuality and teasing didn’t come into it,” Beckerman said. “It’s been so honest. Michael’s been through so much physical stuff. He doesn’t victimize himself and he’s a survivor. I’m going through stuff now that is also really lousy. We both know that.

“The other part is, he always says he got his degrees in North Carolina, but his education in Manhattan,” she added. “I’m a Manhattan girl, but I’m not a theater person, and any time I mention a movie — which was my education — he knows it. We’re so comfortable because there’s absolutely no pretense.”

Along those lines, this show came about in the most casual of ways — it all began when Beckerman reached out to Disher to tell him that she wanted to send him something.

“She said, ‘It’s been in the back of drawer for a while — do what you want with it,’” recalled Disher.

The “it” in question was a series of diary pages that Beckerman has penned in recent years about what it means to grow old in a society that so values youth.

“She’s kind of hell bent right now,” Disher said. “This is an audience that hasn’t been written about often — 70, 80, 90-year-old women. There are a lot of variants, some are great and some not. You’re on the downside of that slippery slope, you begin to realize you wish you had done things differently but wouldn’t go back and do it again for love nor money.”

Disher points out that when one considers the most well-known published diaries by female figures, the names that come to mind are Anne Frank, Bridget Jones, Anaïs Nin. But what of the diaries of older women?

“Therein lies the absence,” Disher said. “There are grandmothers who still have a voice and a mind.”

“Writing is hard, but joyous — like being pregnant,” Beckerman said. “I don’t have to earn a living from it, but it’s mine. Having all this free time and basically no one to talk to, it’s very therapeutic for me.”

Part of that therapy is processing how, during her lifetime, women have been made to feel as if they are never enough, no matter how much responsibility they take on for their families and their careers.

“It’s always our fault as women,” Beckerman mused. “That’s part of why I write these little things I write. I felt so un-everything growing up. I was not a talker, I am now. I saved up the words. I didn’t have a family, I was always awkward. Women over 60 are still so hard on themselves, like they’re not good enough. But I realized as I got older how amazing they are.

“Michael did a mastery job with my words,” she said. “I had more fun working with Michael than anything happening now. I like the process, but I don’t really care about the result. I don’t wait for someone to say, ‘That’s a pretty dress,’ or ‘You did good.’ That doesn’t matter.”

And while Beckerman’s writings may feel like words of wisdom for the next generation, she doesn’t really see it that way.

“I don’t feel like an advice giver,” she said. “I’m a New York liberal. I always felt the only thing you needed to do was follow the Golden Rule, pay your taxes and obey traffic.

“The other thing is, I never believe in perfect. Good is good enough for me. Just be kind and realize the joy of life is in the small moments.”

The Center Stage cast for “Gingy’s Diaries” includes: Myers Bartlett, Patty Greene Brockman, Susan Cincotta, Vay David, Dorit Margalit, Deborah Marshall, Dolores Reilly and Tom Gregory. Michael Disher directs. Performances of “Gingy’s Diaries” are Friday, May 2, at 7 p.m., Saturday, May 3, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and Sunday, May 4, at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 ($15 SAC members) at southamptonartscenter.org. The Southampton Arts Center is located at 25 Jobs Lane in Southampton.