Premiering virtually today Thursday, June 17, 2021 at 8pm ET, and playing for an extremely limited time, is Sarah Ruhl’s Dear Elizabeth starring Kevin Kline & Meryl Streep. Presented by Broadway’s Best Shows‘ this marks the conclusion of “Spotlight on Plays” — a starry series of livestream readings of Broadway’s best plays to benefit The Actors Fund. Only through Sunday June 20 can you see the Academy Award winners livestreamed directly to your home (the stage directions are voiced by Polly Noonan).
From 1947 to 1977, poets Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop exchanged more than four hundred letters. Even as they were worlds apart, their connection was palpable, and their correspondence would become one of the greatest in American literary history. Using these letters, Ruhl brings theatrical life to the story of a 30-year friendship that lived almost entirely in writing, and maps the relationship of the two poets from first meeting to an abbreviated affair — and the turmoil of their lives in between. Dear Elizabeth gives voice to this deeply moving and intimate friendship between two of the greatest minds in American history. Kate Whoriskey (Ruined) directs Ruhl’s beautiful play based on the compiled letters between poets Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop.
Dear Elizabeth originally premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre in Nov – Dec 2012, directed by Les Waters, featuring Mary Beth Fisher and Jefferson Mays. It was then produced at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, in 2013, directed by Les Waters and featuring Mary Beth Fisher and Tom Nelis. It received its NY Premiere at The Women’s Project in 2015, directed by Kate Whoriskey and performed with a rotating cast of the theater community’s most brilliant and beloved performers.
Dear Elizabeth
Broadway’s Best Shows; “Spotlight on Plays”
livestreamed on Stellar at 8pm EST/5pm PST
available on demand June 17-20 ONLY
for tickets ($19), visit Spotlight/Dear Elizabeth
The Actors Fund is a national human services organization that fosters stability and resiliency and provides a safety net for performing arts and entertainment professionals over their lifespan. Through offices in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, The Fund serves everyone in film, theater, television, music, opera, radio and dance with programs including social services and emergency financial assistance, health care and insurance counseling, housing, and secondary employment and training services. Visit www.actorsfund.org.