Willows Theatre Brings 10 Bay Area Actors To The Stage In LOVE LETTERS 7/10-8/2

Ten actors, 24 performances, five sets of personalities and creative interpretations. It's almost as if the Willows Theatre Company were bringing in a different cast every night.

Well, close.

The Willows Theatre Co. has assembled 10 audience favorites to perform A.R. Gurney's Pulitzer Prize-nominated two-character play, Love Letters, July 10 through August 2 at the Willows Cabaret at the Campbell Theatre, 636 Ward Street in Martinez.

Love Letters centers on just two characters, Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III. We watch and listen as the pair reads the stack of notes, letters, and cards they have exchanged over nearly 50 years. They discuss their hopes and ambitions, dreams and disappointments, and the victories and defeats that have passed between them throughout their separated lives.

Melissa is rich, spoiled, with a private nurse and private schools, artistic, certainly lascivious, divorced, eventually alcoholic, bi-polar, and suicidal. She hates writing "these goddamned letters" while Andy Ladd is square, destined for Yale, a naval officer, a lawyer, and a U.S. Senator, and says that "writing letters is what he loves most."

As the play unfolds, we learn that opposites do attract, and that such attraction can last a lifetime. Many in the audience leave a powerful Love Letters performance with a tear on their cheeks.

The Cast of the Willows Production of Love Letters

Playing the roles of Melissa and Andrew in the Willows Theatre Company production are Patricia Silver and Chris Ayles; Cynthia Rogers Baggott and Matthew Purdon; Barbara Grant and Stu Klitsner; Cindy Goldfield and Val Hendrickson; and Lois Grandi and Pat Craig.

"Four of these pairs have played opposite each other before as couples, so it's a natural to pair them up again," explained Willows Artistic Director Rich Elliott. "The other two (Grandi and Craig) have been stalwarts in the East Bay theatre community for years."

Lois Grandi is the founder, director, and guiding force behind the area's acclaimed Playhouse West. Pat Craig brings vast experience to his role as a letter-writer. He is the theatre critic for the Contra Costa Times and other area newspapers.

Barbara Grant and Stu Klitsner are longtime Willows favorites, last seen starring as Ethel and Norman Thayer in the Willows' acclaimed On Golden Pond.

Stu Klitsner, Cynthia Rogers Baggott, and Barbara Grant in On Golden Pond.

Cynthia Rogers Baggott and Matthew PurDon Drew kudos in On Golden Pond as Chelsea Thayer and her childhood sweetheart, Charlie the mail man. Baggott also played the wacky, newly bereaved widow in the Willows' Lying in State.

Cindy Goldfield and Val Hendrickson were last seen as husband and wife in the Willows production of Brighton Beach Memoirs. Goldfield also originated the role of Miread in the Willows' West Coast premiere of Brimstone.

Patricia Silver and Chris Ayles were last seen in the Willows production of Be My Baby, as the squabbling couple assigned to fetch an infant from San Francisco and bring her back to Scotland.

Patricia Silver and Chris Ayles in the Willows production of Be My Baby.

Each pair of actors will appear in four to six performances over the course of the show's run. (Color-coded for your convenience.)

Friday 7/10
8:00
Lois Grandi & Pat Craig
Saturday 7/11
2:00
Lois Grandi & Pat Craig
Saturday 7/11
8:00
Patty Silver & Chris Ayles
Sunday 7/12
3:00
Lois Grandi & Pat Craig

Wednesday 7/15
7:30
Patty Silver & Chris Ayles
Thursday 7/16
7:30
Patty Silver & Chris Ayles
Friday 7/17
8:00
Patty Silver & Chris Ayles
Saturday 7/18
2:00
Cynthia Baggott & Matthew Purdon
Saturday 7/18
8:00
Cindy Goldfield & Val Hendrickson
Sunday 7/19
3:00
Cindy Goldfield & Val Hendrickson

Wednesday 7/22
3:30
Cynthia Baggott & Matthew Purdon
Wednesday 7/22
7:30
Barbara Grant & Stu Klitsner
Thursday 7/23
7:30
Barbara Grant & Stu Klitsner
Friday 7/24
8:00
Barbara Grant & Stu Klitsner
Saturday 7/25
2:00
Cindy Goldfield & Val Hendrickson
Saturday 7/25
8:00
Lois Grandi & Pat Craig
Sunday 7/26
3:00
Barbara Grant & Stu Klitsner

Wednesday 7/29
3:30
Cindy Goldfield & Val Hendrickson
Wednesday 7/29
7:30
Cynthia Baggott & Matthew Purdon
Thursday 7/30
7:30
Cindy Goldfield & Val Hendrickson
Friday 7/31
8:00
Cynthia Baggott & Matthew Purdon
Saturday 8/1
2:00
Cynthia Baggott & Matthew Purdon
Saturday 8/1
8:00
Barbara Grant & Stu Klitsner
Sunday 8/2
3:00
Lois Grandi & Pat Craig
‘Love Letters' offers these special ticketing packages:

Adult tickets $30
Senior tickets $28
Students (with ID) $10
Couples $50
"Lots of Love" packages:
See three different casts, pay only $75
See all five casts, pay only $100

Love Letters was first performed in 1988 at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, with Joanna Gleason and John Rubinstein. Since that time, this "testimony to the actor's art," as The New York Times described it, has seen a myriad of noted performers in the roles of Melissa and Andrew. These have included Kathleen Turner, Barbara Barrie, Philip Bosco, Julie Harris, George Grizzard, William Hurt, Marsha Mason, Christopher Reeve, George Segal, Christopher Walken, Joan van Ark, Treat Williams, and Frances Sternhagen.

The play has also been performed by Carol Burnett, Brian Dennehy, Mel Gibson, and Sissy Spacek at the Sheridan Opera House in Telluride, Colorado.

In 1999, Gurney adapted Love Letters for a television movie directed by Stanley Donen that dramatized scenes and portrayed characters merely described in the play. Laura Linney and Steven Weber starred.

On December 1, 2007, ElizaBeth Taylor and James Earl Jones gave a benefit performance of the play, which raised $1 million for Taylor's AIDS foundation.