TEXARKANA, Texas - A love for theater brings Texarkana Repertory Co. back to the stage at Stilwell Theatre with a presentation of A.R. Gurney's two-person play "Love Letters."
For this show, though, the audience will see actors online, not in person, for a virtual presentation. Four separate "Love Letters" shows, each with a different cast, will be presented online.
Hailey Livingston and Chase Livingston will perform at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 10, Lorie Jones and Alan Harrel will perform at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 11, Ruth Ellen Whitt and Michael Skotnik will perform at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 12 and then Kaye Ellison and John Colley will perform at 2 p.m. Dec. 13.
Each performance will be broadcast for online viewing from the Stilwell stage with actors socially distanced. There's no blocking, nor memorization. As the title indicates, they read love letters.
The letters detail an extraordinary, lifelong friendship between Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, an attorney and politician, and Melissa Gardner, an artist.
For director Michael Cooper, this is the longest he's gone without a show in decades, so he's been looking for something for TexRep to do. But he won't be doing a show where people are "sweating and singing and jumping around" in front of an audience.
"If Broadway's not ready to go, there's a reason," Cooper said. "I tend to err on the side of caution."
Someone mentioned "Love Letters" to him, a show TexRep did years ago with different actors at the Regional Arts Center.
"I thought, you know, it's a beautiful play, and the nature of the play is it's love letters - it's literally what it is," Cooper said.
This correspondence starts when the characters are young, with a thank-you letter, but it continues through their entire lives. Well-known actors are known for doing this play for special events and fundraisers, Cooper said, noting he's seen some theater like this that doesn't work for him. But this does.
"This piece, I think, is perfect because it's an intimate piece to begin with," Cooper said. "And it's the two characters, each siting at a table, and it's the exchange of letters between them, from growing up to being physically apart but growing together."
Ultimately, it's about love, Cooper said. "Couldn't we use some of that now?" he said. The play has humor as you watch these two people grow to be spiritually as close as they can be, despite their different trajectories in life.
"There's Andy, who is Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, and he's the sort of person that is pretty buttoned up, grows up and goes to Yale and ends up with a political career," Cooper said. "And then there's Melissa, who comes from a very wealthy family and becomes an artist, and ends up going down some of the wrong roads."
In spite of times when they don't connect, the letters keep them bound to each other, the director explained.
In his role, he's careful to not over-direct them. His actors will each bring their own approach to the material. It's an acting piece, Cooper says, and so he will allow them to act. He trusts these actors, and the camera will simply livestream their performances.
"If you are a TexRep fan I'm sure there will be a name in there you recognize," Cooper said, noting he's happy to have TexRep back.
"Oh, that's so exciting. I need them to hurry up and get this vaccine out. I have a cast of 'Addams Family' that's been going on a year that they've been waiting," Cooper said, vowing that TexRep will be back. "We want to say, don't forget us, we're still here."
(Tickets are $15. Buy tickets at TexRep.org with a link to Ticketleap. Tickets are sold per device.)