LOVE LETTERS Starring Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti Adds Performances at Irish Rep

Irish Repertory Theatre has added five additional performances for Love Letters by A.R. Gurney, directed by Ciarán O'Reilly (Endgame), starring Tony Award winner Matthew Broderick and Tony Award winner Laura Benanti.

The performance schedule for Love Letters is now as follows: Tuesday May 30 at 7pm; Wednesday May 31 at 2pm & 7pm; Thursday June 1 at 7pm; Friday June 2 at 8pm; Saturday June 3 at 2pm & 7pm; Tuesday June 6 at 7pm; Wednesday June 7 at 2pm & 7pm; Thursday June 8 at 7pm; and Friday June 9 at 8pm. The previously announced June 4 performance has been cancelled.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama, A.R. Gurney's Love Letters is a two-hander drama comprised of letters exchanged between two friends over a lifetime. Andrew and Melissa, both born into wealth and position, begin their correspondence in childhood with birthday party thank-you notes. Their letters continue through their boarding school and college years while they are romantically attached and later through their individual marriages and careers. As the actors read the letters aloud, an evocative, touching, frequently funny, but always telling pair of character studies is revealed, where what is implied is as revealing and affecting as what is written down.

Directed by John Tillinger, Love Letters opened with Kathleen Turner and John Rubenstein on March 27, 1989, at the Off-Broadway Promenade Theatre, which ran for 64 performances. The play was performed only on Sunday and Monday evenings and changed its cast weekly. On October 31 of that same year, a production opened at the Edison Theatre on Broadway, where it ran for 96 performances. It opened with Colleen Dewhurst and Jason Robards. Other performers paired in the Broadway production included Lynn Redgrave and John Clark, Stockard Channing and John Rubinstein, and Timothy Hutton and Elizabeth McGovern.

Tickets to The Letters Series begin at $50 and are available now at IrishRep.org. $25 tickets will be available to patrons under 40 years of age via Irish Rep's GreenSeats membership.

Love Letters is part of The Letters Series, which also featured Dear Liar by Jerome Kilty & George Bernard Shaw, directed by Charlotte Moore (A Child's Christmas in Wales) and starring Tony Award nominee Melissa Errico and David Staller. Inspired by correspondence of fact and fiction that's stood the test of time, The Letters Series explores the thrill of witnessing great relationships unfold and sometimes shape our history in an age of instant communication. Dear Liar and Love Letters allow us to look "behind the curtain" and examine the universal.

Most performances at Irish Rep will be Mask-Optional. Certain performances will be designated as "Masks Required" - audience members must wear face masks for all Wednesday matinees and Saturday evening performances. We recognize that some of our patrons remain cautious about being in an audience with non-masked patrons, and that some are immunocompromised.

Irish Rep will maintain its rigorous cleaning procedures, as safety of our performers and audiences remains our top priority.

IRISH REPERTORY THEATRE

IRISH REPERTORY THEATRE, co-founded by Producing Director Ciarán O'Reilly and Artistic Director Charlotte Moore, is now in its 35th season after first opening its doors in September 1988 with Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars. Irish Rep is currently the only year-round theatre company in New York City devoted to bringing Irish and Irish American works to the stage. Recognized with the Jujamcyn Theatres Award, a special Drama Desk Award for "Excellence in Presenting Distinguished Irish Drama," an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Achievement, and the Lucille Lortel Award for "Outstanding Body of Work," Irish Rep celebrates the very best in Irish theatre, from the masters to the new generation of Irish and Irish American writers who are transforming the stage. Nearly 50,000 audience members annually attend productions at Irish Rep's theatre located in the heart of New York's Off-Broadway community. Once here, they witness Irish Rep's engaging perspective on the Irish and their unique contributions to the world of drama.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT

IrishRep.org

Matthew Broderick

(Actor) made his stage debut at 17 in Horton Foote's On Valentine's Day opposite his father, James Broderick. Off-Broadway: Torch Song Trilogy (OCC, Villager Award), The Widow Claire, Shining City (Obie Award) at the Irish Repertory Theatre and Evening at the Talk House (Obie Award). Broadway: Brighton Beach Memoirs (Tony, OCC, Theatre World awards), Biloxi Blues, How to Succeed in Business... (Tony, DD, OCC awards), Night Must Fall, Taller Than a Dwarf, The Producers (Tony, DD, OCC nominations), Roundabout's The Foreigner, The Philanthropist, The Odd Couple, Nice Work If You Can Get It, It's Only a Play and Sylvia. Films include: Max Dugan Returns, WarGames, 1918, On Valentine's Day, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Project X, Ladyhawke, Biloxi Blues, Glory, Family Business, The Freshman, The Lion King, Infinity, The Cable Guy, Addicted to Love, Election, You Can Count on Me, The Last Shot, Marie and Bruce, Strangers with Candy, Wonderful World, the film adaptation of The Producers, Bee Movie, Tower Heist, Rules Don't Apply, Margaret and Manchester By The Sea.

Laura Benanti

(Actor). Hailed by The New York Times for her "effortless" vocals, and by the New York Post for her ability to "whip up laughs out of thin air," Ms. Benanti first took Broadway by storm at the age of 18 as Maria in The Sound of Music, and has subsequently starred in ten more Broadway shows (musicals, straight plays, comedies and dramas) including Into the Woods, Nine (opposite Antonio Banderas), Gypsy (for which she won a Tony® Award), She Loves Me, My Fair Lady, and Steve Martin's Meteor Shower opposite Amy Schumer and Keegan Michael Key.

Her flourishing television and film career have included widely acclaimed appearances on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" as Melania Trump, Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Tick, Tick... Boom!" and roles on Hulu's "Life & Beth," "Inside Amy Schumer," as well as "Gossip Girl," "Younger," "Nashville," "Supergirl," and the highly anticipated second season of "The Gilded Age." In film, Benanti starred in Netflix's Worth opposite Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci and Amy Ryan, Here Today opposite Billy Crystal and Tiffany Haddish, and the upcoming Sony Pictures comedy No Hard Feelings opposite Jennifer Lawrence and Matthew Broderick.

Also, a book author and creator of the HBO Max special "Homeschool Musical: Class of 2020" based on her viral social media movement: #sunshinesongs, Benanti released a self-titled audio album for Sony Music Masterworks and tours the world performing solo concerts alongside highly celebrated musicians and orchestras.

A.R. Gurney (Playwright) (1930-2017). Albert Ramsdell Gurney Jr. was an American playwright, novelist and academic. He is known for works including The Dining Room, Sweet Sue, and The Cocktail Hour, and for his Pulitzer Prize nominated play Love Letters. During his lifetime, A.R. Gurney wrote over 50 plays, musicals and novels. Educated at Williams College, he served a stint in the Navy, and subsequently studied playwriting at the Yale School of Drama. He began writing plays in the late 1960s, but seemed destined for a mainly academic career, teaching literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After teaching he moved to New York, premiered plays Off-Broadway, and regionally.

CIARÁN O'REILLY

(Director) Favorite directing credits include: Endgame; The Butcher Boy; A Touch of the Poet; Autumn Royal; A Touch Of The Poet*; The Weir* (*Performances on Screen); Lady G: Plays and Whisperings of Lady Gregory; Dublin Carol; The Shadow of a Gunman; The Seafarer; The Dead, 1904; Shining City; Off the Meter, On the Record: The Weir (Callaway Nom.); Banished Children of Eve; The Emperor Jones (Callaway Award, O'Neill Credo Award, Drama Desk, Drama League, and Lucille Lortel Nom.); The Hairy Ape (Drama Desk Drama League and Callaway Nom.); Philadelphia, Here I Come! (Drama Desk Nom). Irish Rep acting roles include Da, Juno and the Paycock, Dancing at Lughnasa, Molly Sweeney, Candida, Aristocrats, A Whistle in the Dark, The Shaughraun, and The Irish and How They Got That Way. He appeared in the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of A Touch of the Poet with Gabriel Byrne. He has appeared at The Abbey Theatre in Dublin and made his Broadway debut in The Corn is Green. Film & TV includes The Devil's Own (starring Harrison Ford), "Law & Order," The Irish...and How They Got That Way, "Third Watch," "Bored to Death" and "The Knick." Ciarán has been inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame and has been awarded the Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad, 2019 by President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins.

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