Letters Live Returns to NYC

ACT ONE

Ferdinand Kingsley

Dearest Beast

Noel Coward to Ian Fleming

Cynthia Nixon

God’s Law

An adoring fan (J. Kent Ashcraft) to Dr. Laura Schlessinger

Rita Wilson

Give women their names

Tabitha King to the media

Laurence Fishburne

In fact you will want to kill him

John Steinbeck to John Murphy

Catherine Keener

I do not believe in war

Joan Baez to IRS

Tom Ellis

I could curse for hours and hours

DH Lawrence to Edward Garnett

Lucy Halliday

I demand answers!

Thatcher Jensen to Lady selling seashells

Mark Strong

Yours in science

Harvey Rowe to Scott Williams

Cynthia Nixon and Laurence Fishburne

What is a minute?

Michelle’s mom to Mister Rogers

Hugo Hamlet

How beautiful!

Salvador Dalí to Federico Garcia Lorca

Sara Sidner

Don’t try to make yourself into somebody perfect

Clarice Lispector  to her sister

Mike Zegen

What you inherited WAS the real thing

A disgruntled customer to Coca-Cola Company

Dolly Wells

Let us love each other

Katherine Mansfield to Dorothy Brett

Cat Cohen

Fortunately I had my new radio

Edna Johnson to Mr. Walker

Billy Porter

It is like a physical wound

George Santayana to Iris Origo

ACT TWO

Cat Cohen

Dear Sir

Sarah-Louise Jordan to an admirer

Tom Ellis

My brains are hanging out like a dog’s tongue

Dylan Thomas to Margaret Taylor

Rita Wilson

A word before I turn out the light

Rachel Carson to Dorothy Freeman

Ferdinand Kingsley

Dear Cretins

Robert Stokes to NTL

Lucy Halliday

Also

Lady Elizabeth Compton to Lord William Compton

Mark Strong

Things to worry about

F. Scott Fitzgerald to Scottie

Billy Porter

Shadows run after me

Kahlil Gibran to Mary Haskell

Catherine Keener

I am so half an orange without you

Anne Sexton to her husband

Mike Zegen

P.S. This is my favorite memo ever

Matt Stone to MPAA

Dolly Wells

As civil as their breath would allow

Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen

Hugo Hamlet

I consider reading the greatest bargain in the world

Gene Roddenberry to a young Star Trek fan

Sara Sidner

Please forgive me for not protecting you

Allisa Charles-Findley to Botham Jean

Laurence Fishburne

What we have got to have in this world is a change of heart

WEB Du Bois to the Tribune

MUSIC

Tom Odell

Black Friday

Another Love

Leif Vollebekk

Rest

Long Blue Light

CREDITS

Joan Baez to the Internal Revenue Service, ‘I do not believe in war’, 1964. © Joan Baez; Rachel Carson to Dorothy Freeman, ‘A word before I turn out the light’, 1963. © 1995 Roger Allen Christie. Used by permission of Yake Literary Management LLC.; Allisa Charles-Findley to Botham Jean, ‘Please forgive me for not protecting you’, 2023. © Allisa Charles-Findlay; Noel Coward to Ian Fleming, ‘Dearest Beast’, 1958. © NC Aventales AG. By kind permission of The Noël Coward Archive; Salvador Dali to Federico Garcia Lorca, ‘How beautiful!’, 1927. By permission of Swan Isle Press: Sebastian’s Arrows : Letters and Mementos of Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca, Translated by Christopher Maurer, Swan Isle Press (2004); Letter to a Funeral Parlor’ by Lydia Davis. Copyright © 2001 by Lydia Davis. From the collection, SAMUEL JOHNSON IS INDIGNANT (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux).; W.E.B. Du Bois to The Tribune, ‘What we have got to have in this world is a change of heart’, 1953. Licensed by The Du Bois Literary Estate, Odell Murry, Trustee.; Martha Gellhorn to Daniel Ellsberg, ‘What a hideous price to pay’, 1971. © the Estate of Martha Gellhorn; Sarah-Louise Jordan to An Admirer, ‘Dear Sir’, 2016. © Sarah-Louise Jordan; Tabitha King to the media, ‘Give women their names’, 2019. © Tabitha King; Harvey Rowe to Scott Williams, ‘Yours in science’, 1994. Harvey Rowe to Scott Williams, ‘Smithsonian Barbie’, 1994. © Harvey Rowe; John Steinbeck to John Murphy, ‘In fact you will want to kill him’, 1957. From: ‘Steinbeck : a life in letters’, Penguin Books, 1973. © John Steinbeck, 1962, Copyright © Executors of the Estate of John Steinbeck, 1969. Copyright © Elaine A. Steinbeck 1975; Matt Stone to MPAA, ‘P.S. This is my favorite memo ever’, 1998. Matt Stone to the MPAA, 1998. © Matt Stone.