(FREEHOLD, NJ) -- Center Players present Love Letters by A.R. Gurney with three performances from June 20-28, 2026. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama, Love Letters is about two lifelong friends and the letters they exchange, told with warmth, grace and heart.
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.
Directed by Stephanie Long, the cast includes Elena Marie Abdou (Melissa Gardner) and Michael Gilbert (Andrew Makepeace Ladd III).
Performances take place Saturday, June 20 at 3:00pm; Saturday, June 27 at 3:00pm; and Sunday, June 28 at 3:00pm. Tickets are available for purchase online. Mattison Crossing is located at 93 Manalapan Avenue in Freehold, New Jersey.
Love Letters premiered off-Broadway at the Promenade Theatre on March 27, 1989. Directed by John Tillinger, the production opened with Kathleen Turner and John Rubinstein, and featured a new cast each week. On October 3, 1989, the play premiered on Broadway at the Edison Theatre, opening with Colleen Dewhurst and Jason Robards and again featuring a rotating cast. Performers included Christopher Reeve, Holland Taylor, Christopher Walken, Victor Garber, Lynn Redgrave, Jane Curtin and more.
Playwright A.R. (“Pete”) Gurney was born in 1930 in Buffalo, New York. He graduated from Williams College in 1952, served as an officer in the Navy, and afterwards attended the Yale School of Drama. For many years, he taught literature at M.I.T. but moved to New York in 1982 to devote more time to writing for the theatre. He has won a fair amount of awards during his career, and is now a member of the Theatre Hall of Fame and of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Gurney has been married to his wife Molly for over fifty years. They have four children, eight grandchildren, and now live in Roxbury, Connecticut and New York City. His plays include The Problem, Love Letters, and Scenes From American Life, among others.
The mission of Center Players, Inc. is to bring enrichment through the performing arts to the diverse community it serves. To achieve this goal, the organization will conduct activities and programs to educate and entertain its patrons, and provide actors, directors and other creative people the opportunity to pursue their craft.
