Dear Jack, Dear Louise (2018)

Cody Nickell and Kate Eastwood Norris.

A free staged reading of Dear Jack, Dear Louise by Ken Ludwig, one of the Talks and Screenings at the Folger, was held in the Elizabethan Theatre on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 at 7:00pm.

Join us for a staged reading of Dear Jack, Dear Louise, a new play written and directed by Ken Ludwig that recounts his parent’s courtship. Cody Nickell (Antony and Cleopatra, The Taming of the Shrew, Arcadia) and Kate Eastwood Norris (Mary Stuart, The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth) are featured in the title roles.

There will be a discussion with the playwright and actors following the reading.

The cast was as follows:

Ken Ludwig

Ken Ludwig headshot.jpg

Ken Ludwig is a two-time Olivier Award-winning playwright whose work is performed throughout the world in more than thirty countries in over twenty languages. He has written twenty-five plays and musicals, with six Broadway productions and seven in London’s West End. His first Broadway play, Lend Me A Tenor, won two Tony Awards and was called "one of the classic comedies of the 20th century” by The Washington Post. He has received commissions from the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Old Globe and the Bristol Old Vic, and he is a Sallie B. Goodman Fellow of the McCarter Theatre in Princeton. His awards include the Charles MacArthur Award, the Helen Hayes Award, the 2017 Samuel French Award for Sustained Excellence in the American Theatre, the SETC Distinguished Career Award, the Edgar Award for Best Mystery of the Year, and the Edwin Forrest Award for Contributions to the American Theater. His book How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare, published by Penguin/Random House, won the Falstaff Award for Best Shakespeare Book of the Year, and his essays are published by the Yale Review. His plays and musicals include Crazy For You (5 years on Broadway, Tony and Olivier Awards for Best Musical), Moon Over Buffalo (Broadway and West End, starring Carol Burnett, Lynn Redgrave and Joan Collins), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Broadway starring Kristen Bell), Treasure Island (West End), Twentieth Century (Broadway starring Alec Baldwin), Leading Ladies, The Game’s Afoot, A Fox on the Fairway, The Beaux’ Stratagem, Baskerville, and A Comedy of Tenors. In 2017, his adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, written at the request of the Agatha Christie Estate, premiered at the McCarter Theatre, and his newest play, Sherwood opened last summer at The Old Globe. He holds degrees from Harvard and Cambridge Universities. His plays and musicals are produced somewhere in the United States and abroad every night of the year. kenludwig.com