1st Person POV

My friend Carl came over the other night to borrow my SIGNED copy of A.R. Gurney's Love Letters since he has decided to present the play in hopes of reviving Monticello Theatre Association.  He and I played the two characters in a Merely Players production in 1996.  I told him I was miffed I wasn't asked to be his leading lady again. 

"So," he replied, "what performance do you want?  Friday, Saturday, or Sunday?"

"WHEN?" respondeth I.

"October 8,9, or 10th,"  sayeth Carl.

So I chose Sunday the 10th! 

If you aren't familiar with this play, it opened in 1989 in NYC, and the minute I heard about it, I applied for the wait list to produce it as an amateur group.  I think we may have been the first in the area to get production rights.  I cast four different couples as the two "pen pals for life" on two consecutive weekends, and we made enough from ticket sales to award a scholarship to a deserving Speech Teamer!  A.R. Gurney is probably my favorite playwright, easily surpassing Neil Simon in the "produceability" ranking.  and this play, particularly, cannot get any easier: in the words of the author, "needs no theatre, no lengthy rehearsal, no special set, no memorization of lines, and no commitment from its two actors beyond the night of performance."

Now, I guess I need to find out what time this perfromance is on 10/10, eh?

I found this little tidbit interesting.  Perhaps you will, too:

When asked what brought about the script, Love Letters, A.R. Gurney responded, "Actually, I wasn't trying to write a play at all. I always used to write all my plays on a typewriter. Finally, a few years ago, I broke down and bought a computer. But I didn't know how to use the word processing software. So I sat down at the computer and decided to teach myself how."

Rather than typing mindless exercises about quick red foxes jumping over lazy brown dogs, Gurney started writing letters. He wrote letters back and forth between two fictional characters. Gradually, they took on a life of their own.

"When the characters started speaking to me I realized I would need to stay with it and see the story through," he said. By the time he'd finished, he was a master of word processing. He also had the working draft of what we now know as Love Letters, only he thought it was a short story. "So when I finished it I sent it off to The New Yorker for possible publication," he said. "But they rejected it. They wrote me a letter saying they were sorry, but they didn't publish plays." It was a "Eureka!" moment, the discovery of something previously unseen. "I thought to myself, 'This isn't a play, but maybe it will work as one,"' Gurney said. "So I began reworking it a little (it didn't take much) to make it fit the stage."

It also didn't take much time to take off as a hit. Love Letters has proven to be one of the most enduring and beloved works of the playwright.

OH!?? and the the last play I was in?  Sylvia, by none other than... A. R. Gurney.

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• #1 Comment from lwhitewave 
  9/29/04 7:32 PM | Permalink

  Mmmm, this sounds yummy!  Makes me wish I had more time for plays.  
  Have fun on the 10th!
  ~Turtle