The Ephron girls are pulling off a true sister act. Nora (best known as a writer, director, and/or producer of films such as Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally and the recent Meryl Streep hit Julie and Julia) has teamed up with her sister Delia (screenplay for Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, author of a number of bestselling books for adults and children, as well as associate producer of Sleepless in Seattle) to create the new play Love, Loss, and What I Wore, a hilarious, heartbreaking Proustian look at women and their affairs of the heart and the wardrobe.

At age sixty, Ilene Beckerman created a little homemade book for her children, filled with quirky sketches of outfits she wore at significant points in her life, with essays explaining each ensemble. This quirky memoir ultimately became a New York Times bestseller with over 100,000 copies sold, and at an age when many women begin considering retirement, Beckerman’s literary career was launched.

In creating the stage adaptation, the Ephrons dug into their own memories associated with clothing and reached out to many of their friends to provide additional essays. And thus, Off-Broadway’s newest spectacularly entertaining hit was born.

The show is like a cocktail hour with your wittiest, funniest female friends, and goes down as smoothly as a frothy cosmopolitan. Love, Loss, and What I Wore is marvelously constructed, with the book serving as the cornerstone of the evening. Beckerman’s text and illustrations alternate with new complementary tales and recollections, sometimes assembled as a series of personal polyphonic one-liners with the ladies all vamping on a similar subject (a la "Sex and the City"), sometimes as duet or trio vignettes, and sometimes as solos.

In the tradition of The Vagina Monologues, the starry five-member cast sits on stools while reading an amazing array of stories. The purchase of a new bra and a baseball cap becomes a parable about strength while facing cancer. The detritus that collects at the bottom of a purse becomes comic gold. Proms, weddings and divorces also get their due.

The show runs through mid-December, with a five-member cast performing in four-week engagements. At the performance attended, Tyne Daly portrayed a Beckerman stand-in, the type of grandmother any kid would love. Rosie O’Donnell brought the charm and sharp comedic timing she honed for many years on her talk show, especially with her deeply affecting autobiographical tale about a new stepmother’s bathrobe that was too similar to one her late mother used to wear. Samantha Bee (“The Daily Show”) Katie Finneran (Noises Off) and Natasha Lyonne (American Pie) all get moments to shine, both together and separately.

The show is so richly performed and written that it definitely withstands repeat visits. Part of the fun, too, is wondering which stories will be told by future performers, like Kristin Chenoweth (Wicked), Jane Lynch (“Glee”) and Mary Louise Wilson (Grey Gardens) -- for a list of who’s playing when, scroll to the bottom of this page).

Audience members will be invited to donate their gently-used purses and other accessories in the theatre lobby to Dress for Success, a charity that provides work clothing and job support for low-income women. In addition, a portion of the production’s proceeds will benefit the worthy not-for-profit.

While Love, Loss, and What I Wore is clearly a play with a feminist bent, the men in the audience were laughing and crying just as much as the women – and gentlemen, you may also learn a bit more about what makes the women in your life tick.

CAST PERFORMING SEPTEMBER 21 – OCTOBER 18
Samantha Bee, Tyne Daly, Katie Finneran, Natasha Lyonne, Rosie O’Donnell

CAST PERFORMING OCTOBER 21 – NOVEMBER 15
Mary Birdsong, Tyne Daly, Lisa Joyce, Jane Lynch, Mary Louise Wilson

CAST PERFORMING NOVEMBER 18 – DECEMBER 13
Kristin Chenoweth, Lucy DeVito, Capathia Jenkins, Rhea Perlman, Rita Wilson

CAST PERFORMING DECEMBER 14 – JANUARY 3
Lucy DeVito, Katie Finneran, Capathia Jenkins, Natasha Lyonne, Mary Louise Wilson

Love, Loss, and What I Wore. September 21, 2009 – January 3, 2010 at The Westside Theatre Downstairs, 407 West 43rd Street. For tickets, call Telecharge.com (212) 239-6200 or visit www.lovelossonstage.com.