What do you think?
Rate this book
Sick
David needs to get laid, Gary could use a drink, and Tim would like you to take your top off. Carla craves cocaine, Jeannie’s got God, and Pamela keeps digging herself deeper into the funny and frightening world of hypochondria. But when one of their own gets sick for real, they’re all going to have to face their greatest fears and grow up.
NOMINEE , LA Weekly Award, Outstanding Playwriting
Play Details
Sick is a 90-minute play with no intermission.
3 female, 3 male, 1 child
comedic drama
hypochondria, mothers, leukemia, sex
Character Breakdown
PAMELA, a twenty-eight-year-old woman.
DAVID, her husband.
MICHAEL, their ten-year-old son.
BROWN, his doctor. Handsome, charming.
GARY, Pamela's brother.
CARLA, his wife.
JEANNIE, an addict, a sales clerk.
“When it comes to walking the fine line between humor and misery, Erik Patterson is an experienced high-wire artist. Patterson’s new play, Sick , is an incisive treatment of hypochondria and addiction that can be blisteringly funny…Subplots abound, and Patterson makes some sweetly salient points about the role of faith in the recovery process, as the people in Pamela’s orbit struggle with their own burdensome brain chemistry.”
– Los Angeles Times
Themes and additional health care, motherhood, parenthood, neglect, alcoholism, recovery, personal growth, bad parents, best new plays, playwrights, books for actors, acting for theater, monologues, female monologues, complicated female characters, scenes for acting class.
About the Author
Erik Patterson 's plays include He Asked For It , Sick , One of the Nice Ones , Handjob , and I Wanna Hold Your Hand . His theater work has been produced or developed by Playwrights’ Arena, the Los Angeles Theatre Centre, Theatre of NOTE, the Evidence Room, The Actors’ Gang, the Echo Theater Company, the Lark Play Development Center, Moving Arts, Black Dahlia, Naked Angels, the Mark Taper Forum, and New Group. His plays have been nominated for the Ovation Award, the Stage Raw Award, the LA Weekly Award, and the GLAAD Media Award. His writing for TV has been recognized with the Humanitas Prize and the Writer's Guild Award, as well as two Emmy nominations. Along with his writing partner, Jessica Scott, Erik has written films for Warner Bros., Universal, 20th Century Fox, Disney, Freeform, MTV, Paramount, Hallmark, and Syfy, among others. Film and TV credits Abandoned (starring Emma Roberts and Michael Shannon), R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour , Another Cinderella Story (starring Selena Gomez and Jane Lynch), Deep Blue Sea 2 , Radio Rebel , and many more. Erik is a graduate of Occidental College and the British American Drama Academy. He hosts a gently-guided writing sprint online called “Sunday Sprints” that attract writers seeking community and inspiration to do their best work.
NOMINEE , LA Weekly Award, Outstanding Playwriting
Play Details
Sick is a 90-minute play with no intermission.
3 female, 3 male, 1 child
comedic drama
hypochondria, mothers, leukemia, sex
Character Breakdown
PAMELA, a twenty-eight-year-old woman.
DAVID, her husband.
MICHAEL, their ten-year-old son.
BROWN, his doctor. Handsome, charming.
GARY, Pamela's brother.
CARLA, his wife.
JEANNIE, an addict, a sales clerk.
“When it comes to walking the fine line between humor and misery, Erik Patterson is an experienced high-wire artist. Patterson’s new play, Sick , is an incisive treatment of hypochondria and addiction that can be blisteringly funny…Subplots abound, and Patterson makes some sweetly salient points about the role of faith in the recovery process, as the people in Pamela’s orbit struggle with their own burdensome brain chemistry.”
– Los Angeles Times
Themes and additional health care, motherhood, parenthood, neglect, alcoholism, recovery, personal growth, bad parents, best new plays, playwrights, books for actors, acting for theater, monologues, female monologues, complicated female characters, scenes for acting class.
About the Author
Erik Patterson 's plays include He Asked For It , Sick , One of the Nice Ones , Handjob , and I Wanna Hold Your Hand . His theater work has been produced or developed by Playwrights’ Arena, the Los Angeles Theatre Centre, Theatre of NOTE, the Evidence Room, The Actors’ Gang, the Echo Theater Company, the Lark Play Development Center, Moving Arts, Black Dahlia, Naked Angels, the Mark Taper Forum, and New Group. His plays have been nominated for the Ovation Award, the Stage Raw Award, the LA Weekly Award, and the GLAAD Media Award. His writing for TV has been recognized with the Humanitas Prize and the Writer's Guild Award, as well as two Emmy nominations. Along with his writing partner, Jessica Scott, Erik has written films for Warner Bros., Universal, 20th Century Fox, Disney, Freeform, MTV, Paramount, Hallmark, and Syfy, among others. Film and TV credits Abandoned (starring Emma Roberts and Michael Shannon), R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour , Another Cinderella Story (starring Selena Gomez and Jane Lynch), Deep Blue Sea 2 , Radio Rebel , and many more. Erik is a graduate of Occidental College and the British American Drama Academy. He hosts a gently-guided writing sprint online called “Sunday Sprints” that attract writers seeking community and inspiration to do their best work.
127 pages, Paperback
Published March 9, 2023
1 person want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 12, 2025
This is absolutely haunting and took me on a ride.
Displaying 1 of 1 review