Sure Thing is part of a series of six short plays that are frequently presented as All in the Timing. Ives's other plays in that series include Words, Words, Words; The Universal Language; Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread; The Philadelphia; and Variations on the Death of Trotsky.
Some of Ives's best-known full-length plays include Don Juan in Chicago, Venus in Fur, Polish Joke, The Liar, and The School for Lies.
Consider 17th- and 18th-century French comic playwrights such as Molière and Pierre Corneille, whom Ives has cited as inspirations and whose work he has adapted.