Jessica Hecht, Ben Edelman & Zane Pais to Star in World Premiere of Sarah Ruhl's LETTERS FROM MAX
Ruhl adapts the 2018 epistolary book Letters from Max: A Poet, a Teacher, a Friendship into a lyrical hybrid work.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Jan. 20, 2023
Signature Theatre will present the world premiere production of MacArthur Fellow Sarah Ruhl's Letters from Max, directed by Kate Whoriskey, based on the book by Ruhl and Max Ritvo (Milkweed Editions), February 7-March 19, 2023. Ruhl adapts the 2018 epistolary book Letters from Max: A Poet, a Teacher, a Friendship into a lyrical hybrid work that flows between full-hearted letters, poetry, music, and dialogue. With Letters from Max, Ruhl shares a personal correspondence, in the various forms it assumes between two people fervently pursuing, and offering one another the generosity of, higher expression. In these notes, verses, and utterances, her former student, the late poet Max Ritvo (Four Reincarnations), openly discusses terminal illness and tests poetry's capacity to put to words what otherwise feels ineffable.
Ruhl, whose accomplished body of work includes Eurydice and Pulitzer Prize finalists In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) and The Clean House, begins her Signature Spotlight Residency-for mid-career and established playwrights, amplifying artists' voices by producing a series of their works as three Signature shows-with this work of arresting candor and intimacy.
Signature Theatre Artistic Director Paige Evans says, "This meditative piece about poetry, ritual, and human bonds feels like such a fitting start to Sarah's residency. It is a personal distillation of elements that are ever-present in her work, and which I am sure we will see in many forms as we produce several plays from her body of work at Signature. It is an honor to collaborate with one of the American theatre's most imaginative minds, and to begin that work with a piece that brings us so close to the playwright herself. In sharing this correspondence with her dear friend, she gives voice and body to their stunning exchange of words through letters and poetry and honors the legacy of another brilliant writer."
As Ruhl describes in her play, Max Ritvo first walked into her playwriting classroom "as though an ancient light bulb hovered over his head, illuminating the room." Ruhl soon learned one of the reasons this person seemed so electrically present and attuned to the world around him was because he had "already contemplated the big metaphysical questions"-he was a cancer survivor. Soon after, Ritvo revealed the discovery, and progression, of an "artefact" of his illness. At once direct and capacious, the searching correspondence that ensued between them reveals a teacher becoming a student and a student becoming a teacher.
Ruhl considers this play a literal extension of her vision of theater as a three-dimensional poem. Ruhl, who began as a poet before she became a playwright, says her approach is to always ask "how much poetry can an evening of theater sustain?" However, as she reveals in the play, she had long been secretive about her poetry, keeping it "squirreled away in [her] desk." While the play begins with the exchange of letters, it often opens into a reading of full poems, both by Ritvo-whose vital, trenchant voice is brought into the present tense through embodiment onstage-and Ruhl, who, in revealing this correspondence, lets her poetic guard down. Ruhl says, "An unusual and inspiring thing about my friendship with Max is, he really pushed me to share my poetry. The gesture of opening my poetry to the audience is also a gesture of my having been affected by Max, very deeply."
Ritual, meanwhile, pervades the work as a reactivation of Ritvo's words, and through the decision to feature two actors-Ben Edelman (Admissions, The Gett) and Zane Pais (The Perplexed, Sunday)-playing the role of Max on alternating nights. Ruhl says, "Kate and I had always wanted to have a third body in the theatrical space-a tattoo-artist angel (Max wrote a play in my class about a tattoo artist angel). And so when these two really extraordinary actors auditioned for the role of Max, we were interested in seeing them both play Max and also this other more metaphysical role on alternating nights. We hope that creates humility around the idea of who plays a role, and adds to the idea that Max's language and legacy is bigger than any one actor." The character of Sarah, meanwhile, is played by Tony nominee Jessica Hecht (A View from the Bridge, Breaking Bad), a friend and collaborator of Ruhl's who had participated in readings of the play since its inception, and whose emotional vulnerability and tenderness serve the play's gentle tone, even as it confronts darkness.
The play arrives in a moment suffused with illness, with a dearth of outlets for confronting mass grief. As a work of ritual theater, Ruhl hopes its candor can help those grieving, and that through additional rituals she and Whoriskey are exploring to surround the performance, the theater can become a space of meditation and mourning. She says, "I think this play is for anyone who has lost a dear friend or family member, or has been sick and gotten through it, or has contemplated death and the afterlife-or even simply the possibilities and limits of friendship. But in terms of who I was really thinking about as I was writing this: I was thinking about Max. I want Max's work and legacy-as a human being, because he was so inspiring, and as a poet-to continue to live on. I was trying to continue my collaboration with him, even though he's not here."
How to Purchase Tickets
All performances take place at The Pershing Square Signature Center's (480 W 42nd St) The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre.
Press dates are:
Thursday, Feb 23, 7:30pm (Ben Edelman as Max)
Friday, Feb 24, 7:30pm (Zane Pais as Max)
Saturday Feb 25, 2pm (Ben Edelman as Max)
Saturday, February 25, 8pm (Zane Pais as Max)
Letters from Max opens Monday, February 27 date with reviews embargoed until 9pm EST Monday, February 27.
About Sarah Ruhl
Sarah Ruhl is a playwright, essayist and poet. Her plays include In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, The Clean House, Passion Play, Dead Man's Cell Phone, Melancholy Play; For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday, The Oldest Boy, Stage Kiss, Dear Elizabeth, Eurydice, Orlando, Late: a cowboy song, and a translation of Three Sisters. She has been a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and a Tony award nominee. Her plays have been produced on and off-Broadway, around the country, and internationally where they have been translated into over fifteen languages. Recent: Becky Nurse of Salem premiered at Lincoln Center, 2022.
About Max Ritvo
Max Ritvo (1990-2016) wrote Four Reincarnations (Milkweed Editions) in New York and Los Angeles over the course of a long battle with cancer. He was also the author of The Final Voicemails (Milkweed Editions), edited and introduced by Louise Glück, and co-authored Letters from Max with Sarah Ruhl; both books were published posthumously. His chapbook Aeons was chosen by Jean Valentine to receive the Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship in 2014. Ritvo's poetry has appeared in the New Yorker and Poetry, among many other publications.
About Kate Whoriskey
Kate Whoriskey is a prolific theater director whose work has been seen on Broadway, off-Broadway and regionally. On Broadway, she directed the Pulitzer Prize winning play, Sweat, by her frequent collaborator, Lynn Nottage, at Studio 54 and the revival of Miracle Worker at Circle in the Square. Off Broadway credits include most recently All the Natalie Portmans at MCC as well as Jason Robert Brown's Songs for a New World at Encores Off Center, Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive at Second Stage, Lynn Nottage's Ruined at Manhattan Theatre Club (Pulitzer Prize Winner) & Fabulation and Inked Baby at Playwrights Horizons among others. She has directed acclaimed productions at theaters all across the country including the Goodman (Ruined, Vigils, Heartbreak House, The Rose Tattoo and Drowning Crow), the Geffen, South Coast Rep (Intimate Apparel, The Piano Teacher, Life is a Dream, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Antigone, and The Clean House), Sundance Theatre Lab, Shakespeare Theatre (The Tempest), The American Repertory Theatre (Master Builder), the Huntington, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Baltimore Center Stage, and Arena among others. Her opera direction has been seen at the Chatelet in Paris and Teatro Municipal in Brazil. She has also taught at Princeton, NYU and UC Davis. Recently, she directed the New York Premiere of Lynn Nottage's play Clyde's, at Second Stage, for which she won a Drama League Award.
About the Cast
Ben Edelman
(Max/Tattoo Artist Angel) made his West End debut in Joshua Harmon's play Admissions, reprising the role he originated to rave reviews at New York's Lincoln Center Theater. Edelman won an Obie and a Theater World Award and received a Drama Desk nomination for his breakout performance. Most recently, Edelman starred Off-Broadway in The Gett, and he was previously seen in the Broadway and Off-Broadway productions of Significant Other. Edelman's producing work includes Your Friend, Memphis, which premiered at SXSW, and David Vadim's Nightbirds (co-producer). Regional: The Chosen. TV: The Good Wife, Braindead, and Instinct.
Jessica Hecht
(Sarah) received an Emmy Award nomination for her performance in the Netflix series Special. She has been seen on television in the limited series Super Pumped and The Loudest Voice and in her recurring roles in The Sinner, Dickinson, The Boys, and Succession. She is also recognizable to television audiences as "Susan Bunch" on the iconic television series Friends and "Gretchen Schwarz" on Breaking Bad. She has played memorable roles on Bored to Death, High Maintenance, Falling Water, The Single Guy, and Red Oaks. Her film performances include A+, Anesthesia, J. Edgar, The Grey Zone, The Sitter, My Soul To Take, Dan In Real Life, Sideways, The Atlantic City Story, and The Sunlit Night. An acclaimed stage actress, Hecht has appeared on Broadway in productions of The Price opposite Mark Ruffalo, Fiddler on the Roof opposite Danny Burstein, The Assembled Parties opposite Judith Light, Harvey opposite Jim Parsons, After the Fall opposite Carla Gugino, The Last Night Of Ballyhoo opposite Paul Rudd, Brighton Beach Memoirs opposite Laurie Metcalf, Julius Caesar opposite Denzel Washington, and A View From The Bridge opposite Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance. Off-Broadway, she has appeared in King Lear opposite John Lithgow and Annette Bening, Stage Kiss opposite Sandra Oh, Three Sisters opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, The Orchard opposite Mikhail Baryshnikov, and at Lincoln Center Theater in Admissions for which she received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination and an Obie Award.
Zane Pais
(Max/Tattoo Artist Angel) Selected Theatre: The Perplexed (Manhattan Theatre Club), Sunday (Atlantic Theater Company), Dead Poets Society (Classic Stage Company), Mercury Fur (The New Group), Skylight (McCarter Theatre). Film/TV: Three Women (upcoming Showtime), Modern Love (Amazon), Room 104 (HBO), Margot at the Wedding (dir. Noah Baumbach), Minyan (Berlinale Selection, dir. Eric Steel), The Independent (dir. Amy Rice), This Closeness (upcoming, dir. Kit Zauhar).
Creative Team
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Scenic Design |
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Costume Design |
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Lighting Design |
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Sound Design |
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Projection Design |
S Katy Tucker |
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Choreographer |
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Props Supervisor |
Joshua Larrinaya-Yocom |
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Casting |
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Press |
Blake Zidell & Associates |
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Production Stage Manager |
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