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Contact: Rick Miramontez / Molly Barnett / Elizabeth Wagner
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Local Contact: Mandee Kuenzle
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE

BUCKS COUNTY PLAYHOUSE
ANNOUNCES BENEFIT PRODUCTION OF
“L O V E  L E T T E R S”
STARRING TYNE DALY AND JAMES EARL JONES

SPECIAL TWO DAY ENGAGEMENT
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20 AND SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21

TICKETS ON SALE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH AT 10 AM

New Hope, PA (9/4/12) – Bucks County Playhouse (BCP) (Jed Bernstein, Producing Director) has announced a special two day engagement of A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters, starring theatre, television and film legends Tyne Daly and James Earl Jones. Love Letters will be performed on Saturday, October 20th at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, October 21st at 2:00 p.m. at the Bucks County Playhouse (70 South Main Street). Following the Saturday evening performance, there will be a benefit reception underwritten by The Inn at Barley Sheaf Farm (barleysheaf.com) to honor the cast and raise money for the Playhouse.

Directed by John Tillinger (Don’t Dress For Dinner, Say Goodnight Gracie), Love Letters is a unique and imaginative theatre piece which is comprised of letters exchanged over a lifetime between two people who grew up together, went their separate ways, but continued to share confidences. As the actors read the letters aloud, what is created is an evocative, touching, frequently funny but always telling pair of character studies in which what is implied is as revealing and meaningful as what is actually written down.

“The Playhouse continues to embrace its history as a place that welcomed legends of the entertainment world and we are also especially thrilled to welcome Ms. Daly back home to the stage that she appeared on along side her entire family in 1963,” said Producing Director Jed Bernstein.

“This is exactly the kind of quality programming that should be gracing the stage of the Playhouse. We look forward to this and many other exciting upcoming events,” said Bridge Street Foundation President Tanya Cooper.

“The Inn at Barley Sheaf Farm is honored to host this esteemed cast at the Inn. Our connection with the Playhouse dates back to Bucks County's golden days when Pulitzer Prize winning playwright George Kaufman owned the Inn and hosted many luminaries of stage and screen here. It is precisely this legacy we celebrate as we host the benefit for the Bucks County Playhouse. We look forward to many more collaborations,” said Inn President Christine Figueroa.

Tickets are $85 and $75 and are on sale beginning Wednesday, September 5th @ 10 am.  For full details, and to purchase tickets for Love Letters, please visit bcptheater.org or call 215-862-2121. Tickets for the benefit reception are $165 and net proceeds will go to Bucks County Playhouse Theater, Inc. For benefit reception tickets and more information call 609-460-4630 x111 or email Lisa Patterson- lisa@bcptheater.org.

Located 90 minutes from New York City, the Bucks County Playhouse opened in 1939 on the site of a grist mill dating from the late eighteenth century. Ironically, the structure was at that time in danger of demolition; however playwright Moss Hart and the local community rallied to save the building and re-opened it as a theatrical venue, which quickly became one of the country’s most famous regional theaters, with a veritable who’s who of American theatrical royalty including Kim Hunter, Helen Hayes, Kitty Carlisle, Colleen Dewhurst, Shirley Booth, Lillian Gish, June Lockhart, Grace Kelly, Robert Redford, Bert Lahr, Leslie Nielsen and Walter Matthau and remained in continuous operation until December 2010.
Thanks to the Bridge Street Foundation, the non-profit family foundation of Kevin and Sherri Daugherty with Tanya Cooper as President, this beloved theatrical landmark was re-opened and celebrated on July 2, 2012, exactly 73 years and day from when it originally opened in 1939.

Bios_______________________________________________________________

Tyne Daly is celebrating her 50th year as a member in good standing of AEA. Broadway: Rabbit Hole (Tony nom.), The Seagull, Gypsy (Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards).  Off-Broadway/regional: The Butter and Egg Man (NY Debut); That Summer, That Fall; Encores! Call Me Madam; Me, Myself and I; The Agamemnon; Queen of the Stardust Ballroom; Come Back; Little Sheba; Gethsemane Springs; The Three Sisters; Ashes; Oliver!; Mystery School; Love, Loss and What I Wore.  Film: John and Mary; Play It As It Lays; Zoot Suit; The Enforcer.  TV Films: “Georgia O’ Keeffe,” “The Perfect Mother,” “Bye Bye Birdie,” “Kids Like These,” “The Entertainer,” “Larry,” “The Man Who Could Talk to Kids,” “Intimate Strangers” (Emmy nom.).  TV Series: “Judging Amy” (Emmy), “Christy” (Emmy), “Cagney & Lacey” (four Emmys).  Cabaret includes Feinstein’s (NY), the Rrazz Room (San Francisco), the Gardenia (L.A.), Cabaret St. Louis.  Recordings: Gypsy, Anything Goes, Call Me Madam, On the Town, The World According to Mr. Rogers (Grammy nom.). Favorite productions: Alisabeth, Kathryne, Alyxandria.  Executive consulting producer: Hana, Fynn, Poppy, and Posy.

James Earl Jones made his Broadway debut in 1957 and has won Tony Awards for the Broadway productions of The Great White Hope and Fences; Tony nominations for On Golden Pond and his most recent role as former President Art Hockstader in The Best Man; Drama Desk Awards for Othello, Les Blancs, Hamlet, The Cherry Orchard and Fences; Obie Awards for Clandestine on the Morning Line, The Apple, Moon on a Rainbow Shawl and Baal; a Theatre World Award for Moon on a Rainbow Shawl; the Los Angeles Critics Circle Award for Fences; and an Olivier Award nomination for his portrayal of Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in London. Additional credits include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway, Paul Robeson, The Iceman Cometh, Of Mice and Men and the Broadway and London productions of Driving Miss Daisy. Jones is also an award-winning film and television actor and was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Oscar.

John Tillinger (Director). Broadway: Don’t Dress For Dinner; Absurd Person Singular with Paxton Whitehead and Deborah Rush; Say Goodnight, Gracie with Frank Gorshin; Judgment at Nuremburg with Maximilian Schell, Martha Keller and George Grizzard; Night Must Fall with Matthew Broderick; The Sunshine Boys with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall; Inherit the Wind with Charles Durning and George C. Scott (Tony Award nomination, OCC Award); Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass; The Price with Eli Wallach (Tony Award nomination); Sweet Sue with Mary Tyler Moore and Lynn Redgrave; Loot! with Joseph Maher (Tony Award nomination, OCC Award); Corpse! with Milo O’Shea; The Golden Age with Stockard Channing, Irene Worth and Jeff Daniels; Solomon’s Child.  Off-Broadway: Tea at Five with Kate Mulgrew; A Picasso; House and Garden; Comic Potential with Janie Dee; The Exact Center; Dealer’s Choice; Sylvia with Sarah Jessica Parker; A Perfect Ganesh with Zoe Caldwell and Francis Sternhagen; The Last Yankee; Lips Together Teeth Apart with Nathan Lane, Christine Baranski and Swoosie Kurtz ; Prin with Dame Eileen Atkins; What the Butler Saw; Urban Blight; It’s Only a Play with Christine Baranski, James Coco and Joanna Gleason; (all at Manhattan Theatre Club); After the Fall with Frank Langella and Dianne Wiest; Breaking Legs with Vincent Gardenia and Philip Bosco; The Lisbon Traviata with Nathan Lane (Lortel Award); Love Letters with many stars including Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst (Lortel Award); The Film Society; Little Murders with Christine Lahti; The Perfect Party (OCC Award); Entertaining Mr. Sloane (Drama Desk Award).  Regional: Don’t Dress for Dinner at the Royal George (Chicago); Eleanor with Jean Stapleton (Arena Stage); and many seasons at Long Wharf Theatre:  Arsenic and Old Lace with Joanne Woodward; As You Like It; The Road to Mecca with Julie Harris; Betrayal; The Lover; The Ruffian on the Stair; A Flea in Her Ear; Another Country with Peter Gallagher and Peter McNichol; This Story of Yours; A Christmas Garland.  Westport Country Playhouse:  Children, How the Other Half Loves, The Drawer Boy, Relatively Speaking, Time of My Life.

A.R. Gurney A. R. (“Pete”) Gurney has been writing plays for over fifty years.  Among them are: Scenes from American Life, The Dining Room, The Cocktail Hour, Love Letters, Sylvia, Big Bill, Far East, Mrs. Farnsworth, Indian Blood, Crazy Mary, and Buffalo Gal. He has also written three novels, a few television scripts, several unproduced movies, and the librettos of two operas. Gurney is a member of the Theatre Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has honorary degrees from Williams College and Buffalo State University, and taught literature at M.I.T. for many years.

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