Synopsis: Living on opposite sides of the Atlantic, Ruby and Pam share their ten-year-old hopes and dreams as pen pals in 1936. In January 1942, thanking Ruby for the American entry into the war, teenage Pam—coping with bomb raids and food shortages on British soil–tucks a drawing into her letter: a sketch of herself catching bombs to keep Ruby and Ruby’s American family safe. In 1945, after bombs cease to fall in Europe and Japan, metaphorical bombs continue to detonate in the women’s lives as they cope with marriage, childbirth, divorce, teenagers, family illness, and death.  Letters became a way for each to help the other sort through the debris of their life choices and to carry on. For decades, there was the hope they would one day meet. Do they? The play is based on the playwright’s mother’s real-life pen-pal friendship with an English lass.   

Genre: Two-act drama

Theme: Compassion across the ocean. For the price of paper, pens, and postage, two young girls promote peace, good will, and international understanding over seven decades. Priceless.

Production History: Because the play contains correspondence Cindy’s mother received over 70 years, Cindy is delaying production of The Bombcatchers until she secures official approval from the children of her mother’s English pen pal to share those letters.