More than 30 years ago, Sharon Schaffer found herself facing the terrifying fact that the next day, she’d be the single parent of two tiny tots, as her husband was packing up to leave for good.

“It was a shock,” Schaffer said. “It came out of the blue on a Saturday afternoon.”

Like millions of others, Schaffer dusted herself off, lined up babysitting, and continued to work hard to put food on the table and pay the bills.

Schaffer was employed at the former Weyerhaeuser plant in Harmony, which cranked out thousands of disposable diapers every week between 1972 and 2003.

The children she raised were apparently paying attention, as her daughter, Marlana Dunn, is in the process of filming a movie about her mother’s struggles and her own childhood in that scenario. The film will serve as the thesis for her master’s degree at the University of Southern California.

“Peanut” is set to premiere on Mother’s Day, Dunn said, and Schaffer will be her date.

“She was only 5 pounds when she was born,” Schaffer said of her daughter. “Just a peanut.”

Dunn, a 2003 Butler High School graduate, said she earned a bachelor’s degree in musical theater with a minor in dance from Point Park University in 2007.

She then hit the professional entertainment circuit, which included three roles in Civic Light Orchestra shows and three more with the Pittsburgh Playhouse.

Dunn has appeared in television series and commercials, toured the U.S. as Marie Delgado in “Jersey Boys” and worked as an onboard entertainer for cruise company Holland America Line.

During the pandemic, she had to perform all the jobs of her chosen craft, such as coming up with ideas for things to film, lighting and filming herself, among other things.

So after 20 years as a professional actress, she felt the hallowed halls of education calling and was accepted into the master’s degree program at USC in Los Angeles.

“It is George Lucas’ alma mater and the No. 1 film school in the world,” Dunn said.

When she enrolled in 2021, she chose her major, film and television production, with a specific goal in mind.

“Eventually, I would like to teach at the university level, and all signs pointed toward (that major),” Dunn said.

While many options exist in the three-year program regarding the required thesis project, Dunn decided to pursue a unique thesis type.

“In our program, you have to apply to submit a film as your thesis because it’s a full short-film production,” she said. “There were more than 100 applicants, and they chose seven.”

She was thrilled to be notified by university officials that she had been accepted to create a film for her thesis project.

“It was very surreal, because I think no matter how confident you are, you’re still like ‘They’re not going to pick me,’” Dunn said.

Dunn had no problem choosing a subject for the film.

“I started thinking about my mom’s life and how I got to where I am, and it all came down to my mom, who worked in a factory for 25 years until it closed, then went to work at another factory,” Dunn said.

She said Schaffer, who now lives in Denver with her husband of 29 years, Todd, was never sad or bitter over her lot in life, and she had many friends at the diaper factory.

But the truth, portrayed in the “Peanut” script, was that Dunn wanted more out of life. Still, she admired her mother’s steady determination to raise her children to the very best of her ability.

“One of the biggest things for me is that my mom was always very happy where she was, and I admired that,” Dunn said.

She said in preparing for the film, she interviewed Schaffer about deep-seated feelings the two had never discussed, like whether she has regrets and how she feels about the film being made.

Dunn will play her mother in “Peanut,” and a young actress will play Dunn in the 1990s.

“I told her ‘This is a love letter to you,’” Dunn said. “I can hear in her voice that she’s really excited.”

Schaffer said her reaction to Dunn’s announcement that the film would be about her was “You’re kidding me, right?”

“I hope people will take away that there’s always a next step, and life goes on,” Schaffer said. “You’re not alone in this by any means, but there will always be someone out there to help keep you going.”

She said reflecting on her life and the challenges of suddenly losing her spouse made her think of her brother, whose wife walked out on him many years ago.

“He didn’t make it,” Schaffer said. “I had just had Marlana then, and he ended his life two months later. I always thought, what if I had done more?”

At the end of November, Dunn and her film crew will travel to Butler to scout exterior shots that contain a large factory, plus the architecture and native flora and fauna of Western Pennsylvania.

“The setting is in the ’90s, so we want to find parts of town that are still not super modernized,” Dunn said. “We’re going to take a day and completely drive around and see what it looks like.”

The movie’s many interior shots will be filmed in a large sound studio in Los Angeles using professional movie cameras lent to Dunn because of her connection at USC.

Sony provided the cameras, which are top-grade models, as well as the lenses that will help portray the working-class life and surroundings of the family.

Once it is complete, Dunn will submit “Peanut” to various film festivals in hopes of getting recognition for the film so it can be viewed publicly.

Schaffer has no doubt the “Peanut” will be a hit, given her daughter’s talent and dedication to her craft.

“I am just so proud of her,” she said, “and she is so well-loved by her college professors.”