Carlsbad Playreaders will close their 2013 season with A. R. Gurney’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated play Love Letters, featuring longtime North County couple Jack Missett and Judi Sheppard Missett. Love Letters will be performed on Monday, Dec. 3 at 7:30 p.m. at Carlsbad City Library’s Ruby G. Schulman Auditorium, located at 1775 Dove Lane.
Andrew Makepeace Ladd III (Missett) and Melissa Gardner (Sheppard Missett) are childhood friends whose lifelong correspondence begins with birthday party thank-you notes and summer camp postcards. The story of their bittersweet relationship gradually unfolds from what is written and what is left unsaid in their letters. A smash hit both off and on Broadway, Love Letters was hailed as “exhilarating, funny and moving” by The Wall Street Journal.
“Carlsbad Playreaders board member Bobbie Hoder first suggested the idea of Judi and me doing Love Letters, and after reading the script, we both thought it would be fun, interesting, and hopefully entertaining to do,” Missett recalled recently. “It's been a while since Judi has done any acting, and she's enjoying it very much, especially since the role is someone so different than she is personally.”
December also has special significance for Missett and Sheppard Missett. “Dec. 23 will be our 46th wedding anniversary and on Dec. 29 two years after we married, our daughter Shanna was born on a very cold and snowy Saturday night,” Missett shared.
Both Missett and his wife have impressive credits. A member of the New Village Arts Theatre Actors’ Ensemble, Missett has appeared in numerous productions including A Comedy of Errors, Death of a Salesman, Of Mice and Men, and Curse of the Starving Class. Most recently he appeared at Moxie Theatre in The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek. He was Carlsbad Playreaders’ artistic director from mid-2006 through the end of 2009, and currently serves as president of the Carlsbad Playreaders Board.
Shepard Missett is founder and chief executive officer of , where she has turned her love of jazz dance into a worldwide dance exercise phenomenon. A fitness advocate and aerobic dance pioneer for more than 40 years, Judi has a degree in theater and radio/television from Northwestern University. Early in her career, she performed in many professional theatre productions, including West Side Story, Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly as well as many corporate industrial shows.
Donations are taken at the door; there are no advance reservations. Suggested donations are $5 for adults and $1 for students. For more information, visit www.carlsbadplayreaders.org or call 760-602-2012.
http://www.sampleletters.in/