Past event

Letters Live returns to NYC!

Date:
31 May - 2 June 2025

Letters Live returned to The Town Hall in Midtown, Manhattan, for a run of three completely unique back-to-back shows on the 31st May, 1st June and 2nd June 2025, each enchanting New Yorkers with the enduring power of literary correspondence.

 

Every Letters Live performance is a one-of-a-kind experience, with a different array of incredible performers reading remarkable letters written over the centuries and from around the world, authored by luminaries as varied as David Bowie to Charlotte Brontë, Che Guevara to Mohandas Gandhi.

 

These shows supported Choose Love and its essential work helping refugees and displaced people around the world, and one of the shows will be in in association with Montblanc.

Running Order

Saturday 31st May 2025
ACT ONE

 

Nathan Lane

 

Strip down, facing me

Tony Capezza to The Lowell Sun

 

Louise Brealey

You will have to destroy it at once
Vanessa Bell to John Maynard Keynes

 

I can’t fight any longer
Virginia Woolf to Leonard Woolf

 

Zoe Chao

A very terrible thing happened to me
Eve Babitz to Joseph Heller

 

Jason Biggs

Stupidity

Name withheld to Superior Insurance

 

Laura Linney

I hope you will never get this letter
Martha Gellhorn to her mother

 

David Byrne

The life and the work are equally important
Andre Gregory to Richard Avedon

 

Sarah Cooper

See you on the ice
Sahar Rizvi to a stranger

 

Ferdinand Kingsley

It is a choice of evils
George Orwell to Noel Willmett

 

 

ACT TWO

 

Laura Linney

 

To speak of me is to think of you

Fay Wray to King Kong

 

What did you say? I can’t hear you…

Katharine Hepburn to Spencer Tracy

 

Zoe Chao

A thousand times no!

Manuela Sáenz to James Thorne

 

David Byrne

I like words

Robert Pirosh to Various

 

Ferdinand Kingsley to Louise Brealey

Oh God, give him back to me

Eric Appleby and Phyllis Kelly

 

 

Nathan Lane

Letter to mama

Armistead Maupin, writing as Nathan Lane

 

Sarah Cooper

Never turn your back on a hermit crab

Amy Sedaris to Various

 

Ferdinand Kingsley

 

How can you live like this?

Oliver Beal to Richard Branson

 

 

MUSIC

Hohnen Ford

Burn My Return Ticket (The Rat Song)

Starlight

 

David Byrne

She Explains Things to Me

 

Jon Hopkins

Intimate 005

 

CREDITS
Lori Alhadeff to her daughter © Lori Alhadeff; Eric Appleby and Phyllis Kelly © The Estate of Jean Kelly; Eve Babitz, letter to Joseph Heller, April 14, 1964. The Eve Babitz Papers, The Huntington. From: Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent (But Some Were). New York Review Book (2025); Eve Babitz, letter to Grover Lewis, November 7, 1972. The Eve Babitz Papers, The Huntington. From: Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent (But Some Were). New York Review Book (2025); Oliver Beal to Richard Branson © Oli Beale; Ross Beeley to the gentleman blow-drying his balls in the gym locker room © Ross Beeley; Vanessa Bell to John Maynard Keynes © the Estate of Vanessa Bell; Aline Bernstein to Thomas Wolfe © The estate of Edla Cusick; Mae Bothwell to the Statue of Liberty © The estate of Mae Bothwell; Andrés Caicedo to His mother © The estate of Andrés Caicedo; Patrick Cassels to Jessica © Patrick Cassels; Allisa Charles-Findley to Botham Jean © Allisa Charles-Findlay
Sunday 1st June 2025
ACT ONE

 

Charles Busch

The spectacle sickened me

George Bernard Shaw to The Times

 

Sunita Mani

You boys better shape up

Eve Babitz to Grover Lewis

 

Dagmara Dominczyk

The problem is the bottle

J. M. to Paul Newman

 

Ansel Elgort

What am I doing here?

Dylan Thomas to Caitlin

 

Sam Nivola

My act is not a defeat

Andrés Caicedo to his mother Sam Nivola

 

Emily Mortimer

FUCK the critics

Peggy Ramsay to David Hare

 

Alessandro Nivola

We were brothers long before you

Groucho Marx to Warner Bros

 

Patrick Wilson

He lacks a conscience 

Bruce Lilly to New York Times

 

Ferdinand Kingsley

This is quite true

Evelyn Waugh to Laura Waugh

 

Noma Dumezweni

Brother, you got a fan now! 

Nina Simone to Langston Hughes

 

ACT 2

 

Ansel Elgort

Who is this kid? 

Tom Hanks to George Roy Hill

 

Ferdinand Kingsley

DO 

Sol LeWitt to Eva Hesse

 

Chase Sui Wonders and Noma Dumezweni

Christopher’s choking! 

Karen A. to Dear Dolly

 

Sam Nivola

I want to crawl up inside you 

Patrick Cassels to Jessica

 

Dagmara Dominczyk

I just want you back 

Lori Alhadeff to her daughter

 

Emily Mortimer

Please congratulate the cows from me 

Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West

 

Charles Busch

DO NOT be so bloody vulnerable 

Noel Coward to Marlene Dietrich

 

Sunita Mani

Dear MTA Riders of the Male Persuasion 

Jenna Clark to Embrey

 

Alessandro Nivola

You’ve truly demonstrated the power of good over evil 

Dr. Douglas Gordon to Father Bolton

 

Patrick Wilson

IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER 

Bill Safire to H. R. Haldeman

 

MUSIC
Yola

Like A Photograph

Great Divide

 

Milena Casado

 

CREDITS
Noël Coward to Marlene Dietrich, ‘DO NOT be so bloody vulnerable’, 1956 © the Estate of Noel Coward; Jenna Clark Embrey to MTA Riders of the Male Persuasion © Jenna Clark Embrey; Martha Gellhorn to Her mother © the Estate of Martha Gelhorn; Dr. Douglas Gordon to Father Bolton © Douglas Gordon; Andre Gregory to Richard Avedon © Andre Gregory; Tom Hanks to George Roy Hill © 1974, Tom Hanks; Katharine Hepburn to Spencer Tracy © the Estate of Katharine Hepburn; Sharon Horgan to the men she’s known and loved © Sharon Horgan; Justin Lee to the New Zealand Police © Justin Lee; Sol LeWitt to Eva Hesse © 2023 The LeWitt Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Bruce Lilly to the New York Times © Bruce Lilly; Michael Toliver to His Mother © Armistead Maupin; Toni Morrison to Black women © the Estate of Toni Morrison

 

Monday 2nd June 2025
ACT ONE

 

Ferdinand Kingsley

To my ever-loving wife

Don to his wife

 

Louise Brealey

The grand bi-polar old Duke of York

Martha Piggott to Private Eye magazine

 

The Matchbox

Sylvia Townsend Warner to Alyse Gregory

 

Noma Dumezweni

It was hard to wrestle those reins out of your hands

Sharon Horgan to men

 

Marlon James

Herbs is his Majesty’s

Lee Perry to Tokoyo Ministry of Justice

 

Crystal Clarke

I love you—the way you always are

Zelda Fitzgerald to F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

Bryan Cranston

Your actions disturb and inspire, and I can’t look away

Ross Beeley to a fellow gym-goer

 

Ira Glass

He asked only for equality

Rod Serling to the LA Times

 

Gina Gerhson

Our parents had often told us about you

Mae Bothwell to Statue of Liberty

 

ACT TWO

 

Ben Shenkman

Five accidents in two minutes

Fred Allen to State of NY Insurance

 

Noma Dumezweni

Please forgive me for not protecting you

Allisa Charles-Findley to Botham Jean

 

Bryan Cranston

Do not be ashamed of your grief

Charles Bukowski to John Corrington

 

Ferdinand Kingsley

I can only hypothesise

Justin Lee to New Zealand Police

 

Gina Gerhson

Have you seen a boy release homing pigeons from a cage?

Aline Bernstein to Thomas Wolfe

 

Crystal Clarke

In our America today we can, in truth, smell it in the air

Lorraine Hansberry to Edythe Cohen

 

Ira Glass

I have very definite rates of payment for animal trouble

E. B. White to Hope Crouch

 

Louise Brealey

Seeking wisdom

Cheryl Strayed to a reader

 

Bryan Cranston and Ferdinand Kingsley

You Babylonian scullion

Mehmed IV to Zaporozhian Cossacks

 

Marlon James

Sleep well my love

Brian Keith to Dave

 

Ariana DeBose

Dear Us

Toni Morrison to Black women

 

 

MUSIC

 

Jon Hopkins
Joan as Police Woman

 

CREDITS
Lee Perry to Tokoyo’s Ministry of Justice © the Estate of Lee Perry; Martha Piggott to Private Eye magazine. Reproduced by kind permission of Private Eye magazine; Robert Pirosh to Various © the Estate of Robert Pirosh; Peggy Ramsay to David Hare © the Estate of Peggy Ramsay; Sahar Rizvi to A stranger © Sahar Rivzi; Nina Simone to Langston Hughes © Nina Simone Charitable Trust, courtesy of Steven Ames Brown; Cheryl Strayed to a reader from Strayed, C., & Almond, S. (2022). Tiny beautiful things : advice on love and life from Dear Sugar. Atlantic Books. Copyright © 2012 by Cheryl Strayed; Dylan Thomas to Caitlin Thomas © The Dylan Thomas Trust; Hunter S. Thompson to A debt collector. Copyright © 1957, Hunter S. Thompson, used by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited.; Sylvia Townsend Warner to Alyse Gregory © The Estate of Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland; E. B. White to Hope Crouch. Copyright © 2006 by White Literary LLC. Recited with permission of White Literary LLC; Fay Wray to King Kong © the Estate of Fay Wray