The Private Life of an American Mom - Characters (1)

Jocelyn Hughes says to “Treat all your secondary characters like they think the book’s about them.” In the case of “The Private Life of an American Mom” the story IS about the secondary characters just as much as the main characters. The story follows Mom, but in group therapy and as events unfold: it becomes clearer and clearer that Mom’s issues are faced by all Moms. One of the morals of this story is that motherhood supercedes racial, gender, and even individual identity, for better or worse. So “The Private Life of an American Mom” is about secondary characters; it is about all Moms. One reason PLAM needs to make it to the big screen is that most women and parents will find pieces of their story as they watch it unfold.

This script has a very small cast of characters, only 14 speaking parts. Another reason this screenplay is a low risk, low cost production. Here is the list of characters in “The Private Life of an American Mom." I'll introduce most of them later and give some background on personality and name etiology.