2007 SEASON    

DAVID'S NOTES

Love Letters
Written by A.R. Gurney
August 20, 2007

Starring Camilla Scott and Paul Eves

Love Letters is a simple visual presentation on-stage - the actors read their scripts while both seated at a table and it is often performed by celebrities as a benefit piece.

A.R. Gurney's Love Letters chronicles the relationship between a man and a woman solely through their correspondence. The play tells the story of Andrew Makepeace Ladd (Paul Eves) and Melissa Gardner (Camilla Scott), whose poignantly funny friendship and ill-fated romance takes them from second grade through adolescence, maturity, and into middle age.

The production traces the lifelong correspondence of the staid, dutiful lawyer Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and the lively, unstable artist Melissa Gardner, the story of their bittersweet relationship gradually unfolds from what is written - and what is left unsaid - in their letters. The words are both hysterical and moving, the audience comes to know both of them intimately - from their strict WASP upbringing, through later life political aspirations, love affairs, military service and artistic ambitions

A smash hit both off and on Broadway, Love Letters captures Andy and Melissa with a precision of detail and depth of feeling only Gurney can command.

HISTORY
A.R. Gurney discovered the effectiveness of the Love Letters presentation when he, along with actress Holland Taylor, read the then-unfinished script in lieu of a speech Gurney was to deliver at New York Public Library. After a six week run at the Long Wharf Theatre, Love Letters was first performed in New York on February 13, 1989, by John Rubinstein and Kathleen Turner.

Love Letters has been seen around the world, including a brief stint on Broadway featuring Colleen Dewhurst and Jason Robards. A cavalcade of stars have performed the piece, including Stockard Channing, Swoosie Kurtz, Nancy Marchand, Kate Nelligan, Paul Newman, Christopher Reeve, Robert Wagner & Jill St. John, Lauren Bacall & Richard Kiley, Lynn Redgrave, Joanne Woodward and many others.

In such critically acclaimed plays as The Dining Room and The Cocktail Hour. A.R. Gurney has wittily captured the manners of upper-middle class WASP America, but never as gracefully or with such dazzling economy as in Love Letters.

2007 SEASON