Proscenium Players Inc. (PPI) is celebrating Valentine’s Day all over again this weekend with three performances of “Love Letters.”
The A.R. Gurney two-person play follows the lifelong friendship of Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner through the letters they exchange through school and war and marriages.
“As their lives separate and converge all the drama comes out, about the decisions they made, the decisions they didn’t make,” said Tom Strekal, who plays Ladd. “It’s about certain regrets we have.”
Darlene Pearson plays Gardner, a woman born to wealth who has many ups and downs in life and, unlike Ladd, rebels against society’s constraints.
“I told Darlene I’d like to do ‘Love Letters’ with you,” said Strekal. “We said who can direct the show and we both looked at my wife (Liz Strekal). She’s a fabulous stage manager and has a keen theater eye.”
This will be the third time the theatre group has performed the play, which is fairly easy to stage.
“It requires almost no set,” said Strekal. “We’re each in a chair and have end tables next to us.”
Some of the props, though, are special.
“My wife bought me a Parker 51 pen,” a vintage fountain pen referred to in the letters, said Strekal. “I pull it out occasionally to underscore the formality. And I had stationery made that says ‘From the desk of Andrew Makepeace Ladd III.’”
Performances of “Love Letters” are Feb. 23-24 at 7:30 p.m., and Feb. 25 at 2 p.m. in the Brewery Arts Center’s (BAC) Maizie Harris Jesse Black Box Theater, 449 W. King St.
Tickets are $18 general admission, $15 for seniors and students, and $13 for PPI and BAC members. Tickets are available online at www.ppitheater.com or call the BAC at 883-1976.
