Writer and actress Joni Sheram was never shy about her illness, or her ideology.
“I am a donor, and I want my organs to go to a Democrat,” she liked to joke. “But I want my heart to go to a Republican — because it might do them some good.”
Sheram, who made a name performing her solo comedy, “Cups,” at theaters from Fort Collins to Crested Butte, died Tuesday of complications from cancer. She was 62.
Sheram recently moved from Colorado Springs to her native Fort Collins, where she was named resident playwright at the Bas Bleu Theatre.
“Cups,” which Sheram performed as far away as New Zealand, traces the milestones of a fictional woman’s life through her bras, which she found to be a perfect metaphor for her larger tales of womanhood. Sheram told the story of Nora from her 1950s training bra to the one she burned in the 1960s to her nursing bra and her mastectomy bra.
The play was an homage to her mother and grandmother.
Writing for The Denver Post, reviewer Bob Bows called the play, and Sheram’s performance, hilarious, poignant and uplifting.
“Sheram’s script captures many of the remarkable, kaleidoscopic events witnessed by the past three or four generations of women,” Bows wrote.
Every woman who sees “Cups,” said Bas Bleu Theatre artistic director Wendy Ishii, “feels it is their own personal, secret story.”
Sheram had been working on “Wheels,” the male counterpart to “Cups.”
“It’s such a shame because ‘Cups’ is just exploding,” said Ishii. The play recently has been licensed, meaning it is now available to be performed by other actors around the country. Stagings are slated from New York to Los Angeles, Ishii said. The script also has drawn potential book and film interest.
And to think when Sheram was writing “Cups,” she wasn’t sure she would live to perform it.
“She was supposed to die four years ago,” said Ishii. Sheram was in the throes of cancer, from which she wasn’t expected to survive. She was ready to go at the time, but after she rallied and recovered, she joked that she didn’t have the right password.
Sheram debuted “Cups” at the Manitou Art Theatre in Manitou Springs in 2008, and runs followed in Fort Collins, Denver, Crested Butte, La Veta, Cañon City and more.
“It’s the biggest-selling show in our history,” said Manitou Art Theatre’s Jim Jackson. “People loved it — and they loved her on stage.”
Sheram was born on Nov. 29, 1947, in Fort Collins. She graduated from Fort Collins High School in 1965 and earned a degree in theater arts from Colorado State University. While a high-school geography teacher at Widefield High School in Colorado Springs, she performed as part of a murder-mystery theater troupe called Red Herring Productions.
Services are pending.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
