Winning Love with ‘Crazy Mama’

Sharon MaHarry burst through the proverbial glass ceiling in 1981 when she was named the first female creative director at Young & Rubicam, the advertising agency that helped to inspire Mad Men. It was quite an achievement for the copywriter, whose life had suddenly taken a challenging turn at eight when she came home from school to find her mother in the middle of a knife-wielding psychotic breakdown. 

“You grow up pretty quickly when that happens,” she said.

More than four decades later, Sharon – now known as Sharon Scott Williams following her 2023 marriage to famed Happy Days star and veteran TV director Anson Williams,and in the very Ojai home the blushing bride/realtor^® had sold him a decade earlier – is set to experience another breakthrough. I’m referring, of course, to the world premiere of Crazy Mama: A True Story of Love & Madness, the one-woman show she wrote based on her memoir of her relationship with her mother. The story covers decades of her family’s struggle with her mom’s mental illness, including a time when her mother believed she was a special agent with the FBI who got her orders through the microwave oven. 

“It was like somebody had taken over her body,” Williams recalled. 

The memoir has won awards, including from the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, but remains unpublished, although many of the essays have appeared in magazines and literary journals. 

“I was too chicken to publish it because it’s very difficult when you pull back the curtain on your family to reveal all the secrets inside,” Williams said. “But it’s better to do it this way, because I could never imagine anything more compelling than what we’re doing with this play.”

That’s partly because Crazy Mama is very much a family affair. Anson not only helped fashion the stories into a theatrical piece for the first-time playwright, he’s also directing the debut, which performs at Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre from March 28 to April 13.

“I’m just so proud of Sharon,” he said. “The script is truly a powerhouse; Pulitzer Prize-material. Having a collaborator like Sharon is incredible, nothing but smooth sailing, and it’s brought a whole other level to our relationship. This all came out of love.”

That connection is what let Sharon relax into letting the material from the memoir out into the world in a big way.

“Because this story is so deeply personal for me, it was easier for me to put it in Anson’s hands because of our relationship,” she said. “I trust him implicitly, and I knew he was going to do a phenomenal job. The whole experience has just made me love him more.” 

The family extends to actress Linda Purl, the Rubicon veteran Anson has known since she was part of the cast for the first season of Happy Days. Purl will be taking on the 16 characters in the one-woman show – everything from Sharon at all ages, to her father, brother, a cop, and many more characters.

“Linda has everything needed for the part, including the physicality,” Anson said. “We really didn’t trust anyone else to be able to pull this off.”

Crazy Mama deals with a difficult subject, but there’s also plenty of humor and a whole lot of heart. 

“It’s sensitive material, but it’s done with just such compassion and laughter and tears and hope,” Anson said. “It breaks down barriers. It entertains. It educates. It shows you’re not alone. It all comes down to two words: love wins.”