This A. R. Gurney Pulitzer Prize-nominated play opened on Broadway in 1989 and a variety of well known actors have lent their talents to the two leading roles over the last 20+ years, including Jason Robards, Colleen Dewhurst, Stockard Channing, Polly Bergen, Timothy Hutton, Kathleen Turner, Julie Harris, Christopher Reeve, Elizabeth Taylor, James Earl Jones and Lynn Redgrave. On Thursday, May 27 and Friday, May 28 Love Letters will come to the stage at BCP Theater at 7:00 pm, co-produced by Susan Thoms and Dana Applegate .
Love Letters spans the 50 year relationship between Melissa Channing Gardener and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, two of New England’s privileged people. The two begin to write notes, cards and letters to each other in grammar school and continue well into their golden years. The relationship is at times warm and poignent and at other times difficult and strained. The one constant between them is their correspondence, which runs the gambit from excited expectation to disappointment…..from jealousy to longing……from exasperation to pleasure.
Even though this is a Reader’s Play, emotions are peaked at every level from laughter to tears and everything in between. Thursday night’s parts will be read by Yella Werder and Jim Maffitt, with Sandra Shepherd and Jerry Wagner taking the stage on Friday.
Anyone who has ever experienced a complicated relationship will find something to relate to, and those who have known unrequited love or fear of temptation will find familiar patterns in this charming script.
Tickets are $10 and include a pre-show sampling of hors d’oeuvres (4 per person) and a choice of wine or champagne. Tickets go on sale at Mail Boxes, Etc. on May 11 and will also be sold at the Tuesday Market. Since there are only 2 nights of performance, be sure to get your tickets early.
