‘There’s no Are You There, God? It’s Me, Menopause.”
That’s an observation Jennifer Whalen’s character makes to Meredith MacNeill’s in the first episode of Small Achievable Goals, their new coming-of-middle-age comedy about menopause as experienced by two very different women.
It’s also something Whalen and MacNeill were thinking about as the show’s co-creators and writers.
“When I started to go through (menopause), I felt like there was no road map and I literally was like, ‘Where is Judy Blume?’” says Whalen, who along with MacNeill, starred and executive produced the sketch-comedy series Baroness Von Sketch Show. “I remember before I got my period reading (author Blume’s landmark YA novel) Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, and I was so excited about it. It just helped me make that transition.”
“You really felt, with Judy Blume, you had someone that was speaking to you through that phase,” MacNeill adds. “You could go to a local library, …