A. R. Gurney (born November 1, 1930) born as Albert Ramsdell Gurney Jr, sometimes credited as Pete Gurney is an American playwright, novelist and academic. He is known for works including Love Letters, The Cocktail Hour, The Dining Room His and Sweet Sue. Gurney currently lives in New York and Connecticut. His series of plays about upper-class White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) life in contemporary America have been called "penetratingly witty studies of the WASP ascendancy in retreat." In "The Cocktail Hour" (1988), for example, a lead character tells her playwright son that theater critics "don't like us.... They resent us. They think we're all Republicans, all superficial and all alcoholics. Only the latter is true."
Biography
Born in Buffalo, New York, Gurney, a graduate of St. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire), attended Williams College and the Yale School of Drama, after which he began teaching Humanities at MIT. He began writing plays such as Children and The Middle Ages while at MIT, but it was his great success with The Dining Room that allowed him to write full-time. Since The Dining Room, Gurney has written a number of plays, most of them concerning WASPs of the American northeast. While at Yale, Gurney also wrote the musical: Love in Buffalo; this was the first musical ever produced at the Yale School of Drama.
A love letter is a romantic way to express feelings of love in written form. Whether delivered by hand, mail, carrier pigeon, or romantically left in a secret location, the letter may be anything from a short and simple message of love to a lengthy explanation of feelings, which could be tiring to read if it is too long. But it could go either way. Love letters may 'move through the widest range of emotions - devotion, disappointment, grief and indignation, self-confidence, ambition, impatience, self-reproach and resignation'.
Historical sketch
Examples from Ancient Egypt range from the most formal - 'the royal widow...Ankhesenamun wrote a letter to the king of the Hittites, Egypt's old enemy, begging him to send one of his sons to Egypt to marry her' - to the down-to-earth: let me 'bathe in thy presence, that I may let thee see my beauty in my tunic of finest linen, when it is wet'. Imperial China might demand a higher degree of literary skill: when a heroine, faced with an arranged marriage, wrote to her childhood sweetheart, he exclaimed, 'what choice talent speaks in her well-chosen words...everything breathes the style of a Li T'ai Po. How on earth can anyone want to marry her off to some humdrum clod?'.
Love Letters by A.R Gurney
Produced by The Viking Theatre, Dublin
(Performed from Monday 5th June to Saturday 24th June 2023)
The cast includes Bryan Murray in his final stage performance after a 54 year stage career and Una Crawford O Brien on one of her finest performances.
Directed by Joe Devlin
A.R Gurney's critically acclaimed contemporary classic play Love Letters chronicles the relationship between Andy and Melissa solely through their correspondence.
The play tells the story of Andrew Makepeace Ladd and Melissa Gardner, whose poignantly funny friendship and ill-fated romance takes them from second grade through adolescence, maturity, and into middle age.
published: 31 Jul 2023
Love Letters by AR Gurney
1st MCC Drama Club production, featuring professors Laura J. Bilodeau and Andrew Goldstein.
published: 06 Sep 2017
LOVE LETTERS by A.R. Gurney - Starring Dennis Helfand & Judy Helfand - May 2018
Amherst College
Kirby Memorial Theater
PRESENTS
LOVE LETTERS
by
A.R. Gurney
Starring Dennis Helfand & Judy Helfand
Produced and Directed by Dennis Helfand
Production Notes
Audiences around the world have responded with both tears and laughter to the love story of Andy and Melissa as recounted by them while they re-read their letters to each other from the second grade through to adulthood.
The unusual style of the play enhances its powe...
published: 27 Jun 2018
A. R. Gurney: Love Letters
Playwright A. R. Gurney was born November 1, 1930 in Buffalo, New York. He attended the Yale School of Drama and taught at MIT. His most notable plays include The Dining Room, The Cocktail Hour, Sylvia, Far East and Ancestral Voices. A. R. Gurney was interviewed by Mike Wood in February of 2000 at his home in New York. The interview segments are courtesy of the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kansas.
published: 09 Aug 2014
Love Letters by A.R. Gurney at LVLT - Jan 15 - 31, 2021
A brief preview of Love Letters by A.R. Gurney at LVLT. Runs Jan 15 - 31.
published: 22 Jan 2021
'Love Letters' with Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal
"Love Story" stars Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal reunite 45 years alater for national tour of "Love Letters." (Video courtesy of NETworks Presentations)
published: 21 Mar 2016
A.R. Gurney Discusses Love Letters on Broadway
Love Letters is a disarmingly funny and unforgettably emotional portrait about the powerful connection of love. Two friends share fifty years of friendship through countless letters_from grade school valentines to romantic missives, they express their hopes and fears, loves and loses. But long after the letters are done, the real question remains: Have they made the right choices or is the love of their life only a letter away?
See your favorite stars including Brian Dennehy, Carol Burnett, Alan Alda, Candice Bergen, Diana Rigg, Martin Sheen, Angelica Huston and so many more brilliant talents to be announced. Directed by Tony Award® nominee Gregory Mosher (A View from the Bridge) and written by celebrated playwright A.R. Gurney. An enduring romance about first loves and second chances com...
published: 29 Oct 2014
Love Letters von A. R. Gurney
Aktuelle Produktion des T:K-Theater in Kempten, Premiere: 19.04.2021, Stadttheater Kempten
Mit Julia Jaschke & Hans Piesbergen
Regie: Annette Wunsch
Bühnen- & Kostümbild: Michael S. Kraus
Maskenbild: Helen Laitzsch
Video: Rainer Hartmann
published: 18 Apr 2021
Theatre Aspen presents Love Letters by A.R. Gurney
We have the perfect Valentine's Day Gift -- the February Fling: A Benefit for Theatre Aspen.
Join Theatre Aspen on February 11 for Love Letters starring Golden Globes nominee Marilu Henner and Emmy & Golden Globe award-winner Judd Hirsch.
Limited general admission tickets are available at TheatreAspen.org.
The February Fling is a fundraising event, if you are interested in supporting Theatre Aspen, please contact Paul Gabbard | [email protected]
published: 11 Jan 2023
Love Letters by A.R. Gurney
Montclair State University Friday Afternoon Student Theatre Fall 2020
Written by A.R. Gurney
Directed by Michael Allen
Lighting Design by Jessica Vaccaro
Cinematography and Editing by Jacob Matthew Baldy
Cast:
Andrew Makepeace Ladd III: Isaiah Robinson
Melissa Gardner: Alexia Pereyra
Love Letters by A.R Gurney
Produced by The Viking Theatre, Dublin
(Performed from Monday 5th June to Saturday 24th June 2023)
The cast includes Bryan Murray...
Love Letters by A.R Gurney
Produced by The Viking Theatre, Dublin
(Performed from Monday 5th June to Saturday 24th June 2023)
The cast includes Bryan Murray in his final stage performance after a 54 year stage career and Una Crawford O Brien on one of her finest performances.
Directed by Joe Devlin
A.R Gurney's critically acclaimed contemporary classic play Love Letters chronicles the relationship between Andy and Melissa solely through their correspondence.
The play tells the story of Andrew Makepeace Ladd and Melissa Gardner, whose poignantly funny friendship and ill-fated romance takes them from second grade through adolescence, maturity, and into middle age.
Love Letters by A.R Gurney
Produced by The Viking Theatre, Dublin
(Performed from Monday 5th June to Saturday 24th June 2023)
The cast includes Bryan Murray in his final stage performance after a 54 year stage career and Una Crawford O Brien on one of her finest performances.
Directed by Joe Devlin
A.R Gurney's critically acclaimed contemporary classic play Love Letters chronicles the relationship between Andy and Melissa solely through their correspondence.
The play tells the story of Andrew Makepeace Ladd and Melissa Gardner, whose poignantly funny friendship and ill-fated romance takes them from second grade through adolescence, maturity, and into middle age.
Amherst College
Kirby Memorial Theater
PRESENTS
...
Amherst College
Kirby Memorial Theater
PRESENTS
LOVE LETTERS
by
A.R. Gurney
Starring Dennis Helfand & Judy Helfand
Produced and Directed by Dennis Helfand
Production Notes
Audiences around the world have responded with both tears and laughter to the love story of Andy and Melissa as recounted by them while they re-read their letters to each other from the second grade through to adulthood.
The unusual style of the play enhances its powerful effect on listeners. It allows the words, not action, to recreate the story of this lifelong, tumultuous romance. With only two actors on stage, the audience is very soon drawn into the story as it unfolds and, by play’s end, have become completely caught up in the personality and destiny of each character. It’s a powerful memorable night of theatre and one you’ll long remember.
Today's performance was produced for Amherst College's Class of '68 50th Reunion on May 24, 2018.
LOVE LETTERS was presented at The Long Wharf Theatre,
M. Edgar Rosenblum, Executive Director;
Arvin Brown, Artistic Director
Love Letters is presented through special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service. 440 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016 Phone: 212-683-8960 Fax: 212-213-1539 www.Dramatists.com
Amherst College
Kirby Memorial Theater
PRESENTS
LOVE LETTERS
by
A.R. Gurney
Starring Dennis Helfand & Judy Helfand
Produced and Directed by Dennis Helfand
Production Notes
Audiences around the world have responded with both tears and laughter to the love story of Andy and Melissa as recounted by them while they re-read their letters to each other from the second grade through to adulthood.
The unusual style of the play enhances its powerful effect on listeners. It allows the words, not action, to recreate the story of this lifelong, tumultuous romance. With only two actors on stage, the audience is very soon drawn into the story as it unfolds and, by play’s end, have become completely caught up in the personality and destiny of each character. It’s a powerful memorable night of theatre and one you’ll long remember.
Today's performance was produced for Amherst College's Class of '68 50th Reunion on May 24, 2018.
LOVE LETTERS was presented at The Long Wharf Theatre,
M. Edgar Rosenblum, Executive Director;
Arvin Brown, Artistic Director
Love Letters is presented through special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service. 440 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016 Phone: 212-683-8960 Fax: 212-213-1539 www.Dramatists.com
Playwright A. R. Gurney was born November 1, 1930 in Buffalo, New York. He attended the Yale School of Drama and taught at MIT. His most notable plays include T...
Playwright A. R. Gurney was born November 1, 1930 in Buffalo, New York. He attended the Yale School of Drama and taught at MIT. His most notable plays include The Dining Room, The Cocktail Hour, Sylvia, Far East and Ancestral Voices. A. R. Gurney was interviewed by Mike Wood in February of 2000 at his home in New York. The interview segments are courtesy of the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kansas.
Playwright A. R. Gurney was born November 1, 1930 in Buffalo, New York. He attended the Yale School of Drama and taught at MIT. His most notable plays include The Dining Room, The Cocktail Hour, Sylvia, Far East and Ancestral Voices. A. R. Gurney was interviewed by Mike Wood in February of 2000 at his home in New York. The interview segments are courtesy of the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kansas.
Love Letters is a disarmingly funny and unforgettably emotional portrait about the powerful connection of love. Two friends share fifty years of friendship thro...
Love Letters is a disarmingly funny and unforgettably emotional portrait about the powerful connection of love. Two friends share fifty years of friendship through countless letters_from grade school valentines to romantic missives, they express their hopes and fears, loves and loses. But long after the letters are done, the real question remains: Have they made the right choices or is the love of their life only a letter away?
See your favorite stars including Brian Dennehy, Carol Burnett, Alan Alda, Candice Bergen, Diana Rigg, Martin Sheen, Angelica Huston and so many more brilliant talents to be announced. Directed by Tony Award® nominee Gregory Mosher (A View from the Bridge) and written by celebrated playwright A.R. Gurney. An enduring romance about first loves and second chances comes to Broadway.
Love Letters is a disarmingly funny and unforgettably emotional portrait about the powerful connection of love. Two friends share fifty years of friendship through countless letters_from grade school valentines to romantic missives, they express their hopes and fears, loves and loses. But long after the letters are done, the real question remains: Have they made the right choices or is the love of their life only a letter away?
See your favorite stars including Brian Dennehy, Carol Burnett, Alan Alda, Candice Bergen, Diana Rigg, Martin Sheen, Angelica Huston and so many more brilliant talents to be announced. Directed by Tony Award® nominee Gregory Mosher (A View from the Bridge) and written by celebrated playwright A.R. Gurney. An enduring romance about first loves and second chances comes to Broadway.
Aktuelle Produktion des T:K-Theater in Kempten, Premiere: 19.04.2021, Stadttheater Kempten
Mit Julia Jaschke & Hans Piesbergen
Regie: Annette Wunsch
Bühnen- & K...
Aktuelle Produktion des T:K-Theater in Kempten, Premiere: 19.04.2021, Stadttheater Kempten
Mit Julia Jaschke & Hans Piesbergen
Regie: Annette Wunsch
Bühnen- & Kostümbild: Michael S. Kraus
Maskenbild: Helen Laitzsch
Video: Rainer Hartmann
Aktuelle Produktion des T:K-Theater in Kempten, Premiere: 19.04.2021, Stadttheater Kempten
Mit Julia Jaschke & Hans Piesbergen
Regie: Annette Wunsch
Bühnen- & Kostümbild: Michael S. Kraus
Maskenbild: Helen Laitzsch
Video: Rainer Hartmann
We have the perfect Valentine's Day Gift -- the February Fling: A Benefit for Theatre Aspen.
Join Theatre Aspen on February 11 for Love Letters starring Golde...
We have the perfect Valentine's Day Gift -- the February Fling: A Benefit for Theatre Aspen.
Join Theatre Aspen on February 11 for Love Letters starring Golden Globes nominee Marilu Henner and Emmy & Golden Globe award-winner Judd Hirsch.
Limited general admission tickets are available at TheatreAspen.org.
The February Fling is a fundraising event, if you are interested in supporting Theatre Aspen, please contact Paul Gabbard | [email protected]
We have the perfect Valentine's Day Gift -- the February Fling: A Benefit for Theatre Aspen.
Join Theatre Aspen on February 11 for Love Letters starring Golden Globes nominee Marilu Henner and Emmy & Golden Globe award-winner Judd Hirsch.
Limited general admission tickets are available at TheatreAspen.org.
The February Fling is a fundraising event, if you are interested in supporting Theatre Aspen, please contact Paul Gabbard | [email protected]
Montclair State University Friday Afternoon Student Theatre Fall 2020
Written by A.R. Gurney
Directed by Michael Allen
Lighting Design by Jessica Vaccaro
Cinem...
Montclair State University Friday Afternoon Student Theatre Fall 2020
Written by A.R. Gurney
Directed by Michael Allen
Lighting Design by Jessica Vaccaro
Cinematography and Editing by Jacob Matthew Baldy
Cast:
Andrew Makepeace Ladd III: Isaiah Robinson
Melissa Gardner: Alexia Pereyra
Montclair State University Friday Afternoon Student Theatre Fall 2020
Written by A.R. Gurney
Directed by Michael Allen
Lighting Design by Jessica Vaccaro
Cinematography and Editing by Jacob Matthew Baldy
Cast:
Andrew Makepeace Ladd III: Isaiah Robinson
Melissa Gardner: Alexia Pereyra
Love Letters by A.R Gurney
Produced by The Viking Theatre, Dublin
(Performed from Monday 5th June to Saturday 24th June 2023)
The cast includes Bryan Murray in his final stage performance after a 54 year stage career and Una Crawford O Brien on one of her finest performances.
Directed by Joe Devlin
A.R Gurney's critically acclaimed contemporary classic play Love Letters chronicles the relationship between Andy and Melissa solely through their correspondence.
The play tells the story of Andrew Makepeace Ladd and Melissa Gardner, whose poignantly funny friendship and ill-fated romance takes them from second grade through adolescence, maturity, and into middle age.
Amherst College
Kirby Memorial Theater
PRESENTS
LOVE LETTERS
by
A.R. Gurney
Starring Dennis Helfand & Judy Helfand
Produced and Directed by Dennis Helfand
Production Notes
Audiences around the world have responded with both tears and laughter to the love story of Andy and Melissa as recounted by them while they re-read their letters to each other from the second grade through to adulthood.
The unusual style of the play enhances its powerful effect on listeners. It allows the words, not action, to recreate the story of this lifelong, tumultuous romance. With only two actors on stage, the audience is very soon drawn into the story as it unfolds and, by play’s end, have become completely caught up in the personality and destiny of each character. It’s a powerful memorable night of theatre and one you’ll long remember.
Today's performance was produced for Amherst College's Class of '68 50th Reunion on May 24, 2018.
LOVE LETTERS was presented at The Long Wharf Theatre,
M. Edgar Rosenblum, Executive Director;
Arvin Brown, Artistic Director
Love Letters is presented through special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service. 440 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016 Phone: 212-683-8960 Fax: 212-213-1539 www.Dramatists.com
Playwright A. R. Gurney was born November 1, 1930 in Buffalo, New York. He attended the Yale School of Drama and taught at MIT. His most notable plays include The Dining Room, The Cocktail Hour, Sylvia, Far East and Ancestral Voices. A. R. Gurney was interviewed by Mike Wood in February of 2000 at his home in New York. The interview segments are courtesy of the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kansas.
Love Letters is a disarmingly funny and unforgettably emotional portrait about the powerful connection of love. Two friends share fifty years of friendship through countless letters_from grade school valentines to romantic missives, they express their hopes and fears, loves and loses. But long after the letters are done, the real question remains: Have they made the right choices or is the love of their life only a letter away?
See your favorite stars including Brian Dennehy, Carol Burnett, Alan Alda, Candice Bergen, Diana Rigg, Martin Sheen, Angelica Huston and so many more brilliant talents to be announced. Directed by Tony Award® nominee Gregory Mosher (A View from the Bridge) and written by celebrated playwright A.R. Gurney. An enduring romance about first loves and second chances comes to Broadway.
Aktuelle Produktion des T:K-Theater in Kempten, Premiere: 19.04.2021, Stadttheater Kempten
Mit Julia Jaschke & Hans Piesbergen
Regie: Annette Wunsch
Bühnen- & Kostümbild: Michael S. Kraus
Maskenbild: Helen Laitzsch
Video: Rainer Hartmann
We have the perfect Valentine's Day Gift -- the February Fling: A Benefit for Theatre Aspen.
Join Theatre Aspen on February 11 for Love Letters starring Golden Globes nominee Marilu Henner and Emmy & Golden Globe award-winner Judd Hirsch.
Limited general admission tickets are available at TheatreAspen.org.
The February Fling is a fundraising event, if you are interested in supporting Theatre Aspen, please contact Paul Gabbard | [email protected]
Montclair State University Friday Afternoon Student Theatre Fall 2020
Written by A.R. Gurney
Directed by Michael Allen
Lighting Design by Jessica Vaccaro
Cinematography and Editing by Jacob Matthew Baldy
Cast:
Andrew Makepeace Ladd III: Isaiah Robinson
Melissa Gardner: Alexia Pereyra
A. R. Gurney (born November 1, 1930) born as Albert Ramsdell Gurney Jr, sometimes credited as Pete Gurney is an American playwright, novelist and academic. He is known for works including Love Letters, The Cocktail Hour, The Dining Room His and Sweet Sue. Gurney currently lives in New York and Connecticut. His series of plays about upper-class White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) life in contemporary America have been called "penetratingly witty studies of the WASP ascendancy in retreat." In "The Cocktail Hour" (1988), for example, a lead character tells her playwright son that theater critics "don't like us.... They resent us. They think we're all Republicans, all superficial and all alcoholics. Only the latter is true."
Biography
Born in Buffalo, New York, Gurney, a graduate of St. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire), attended Williams College and the Yale School of Drama, after which he began teaching Humanities at MIT. He began writing plays such as Children and The Middle Ages while at MIT, but it was his great success with The Dining Room that allowed him to write full-time. Since The Dining Room, Gurney has written a number of plays, most of them concerning WASPs of the American northeast. While at Yale, Gurney also wrote the musical: Love in Buffalo; this was the first musical ever produced at the Yale School of Drama.
(edward heyman, victor young) The sky may be starless, The night may be moonless. But deep in my heart, I know that you love me, You love me, because you told me so. Love letters straight from your heart Keep us so near while we’re apart. I’m not alone in the night When I can have all the love you write. I memorize every line, I kiss the name that you sign. And darling, then I read again Right from the start, Love letters straight from your heart. ~interlude~ I memorize every line, I kiss the name that you sign. And darling, then I read again Right from the start, Love letters straight from your heart.