When two strangers meet by letter during World War II, it sparks an unlikely correspondence that will change their lives forever.
Jack is a military doctor and US Army Captain stationed in Oregon, earnest and duty-bound. Louise is an aspiring actress and dancer in New York, brimming with sparkle and big-city dreams. What begins as one letter soon turns into hundreds.
Making its UK premiere, from two-time Olivier Award-winning playwright Ken Ludwig (Crazy For You; Lend Me a Tenor), Dear Jack, Dear Louise is a warm, witty and deeply moving portrait of two people kept apart by war, finding love against the odds.
Inspired by the meeting of Ludwig’s own parents, this joyful and profoundly moving play reminds us that even in the darkest chapters of history, the heart still finds a way to write its own story.
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Running time
1 hour 50 minutes (including interval) -
Age guidance
10+ -
Discounts
Concessions available
Pay What You Can Tuesdays
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Captioned performance
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Relaxed performance
Praise for previous productions of Dear Jack, Dear Louise:
"Charming, funny and heart-warming"
"A lively, funny, touching two-person show from one of the contemporary stage’s most beloved comic playwrights"
The Company
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Preston Nyman
Jack
Preston Nyman
Jack
Theatre credits include: Ghost Stories (UK Tour/Peacock Theatre), The Deep Blue Sea (Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal Bath, Theatre Royal Haymarket), Ghost Stories (Lyric Hammersmith and Ambassadors Theatre) and George’s Marvellous Medicine (Curve/Rose Kingston/UK tour).
Film credits include: Zazu in Mufasa: The Lion King (Disney, dir. Barry Jenkins) and Eustace in Agatha Christie’s Crooked House (Sony Pictures, dir. Gilles Paquet-Brenner).
Television credits include: A Small Light (Disney+), Ridley Road (BBC/Red Productions), Stath Lets Flats (Channel 4), Catch 22 (Hulu), Silent Witness, This Country, Doctors (BBC), Doc Martin (ITV) and Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom (Entertainment One).
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Eva Feiler
Louise
Eva Feiler
Louise
Eva trained at Guildhall School of Music & Drama where she was awarded the Gold Medal and Michael Bryant Award.
Theatre includes: Othello and The Merchant of Venice (RSC), The Divine Mrs S (Hampstead Theatre), Black Chiffon (Park Theatre), The Winter’s Tale (Sheffield Crucible), Square Rounds (Finborough, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Picture of Dorian Gray (Watermill Theatre), The Dog Beneath the Skin (Jermyn Street), Northanger Abbey (UK tour), Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth (Shakespeare 400, Royal Festival Hall), See What I see (Oxford Playhouse) and Eldorado (Arcola).
Television includes: We Were the Lucky Ones (Disney+/Hulu), The Crown (S4, Netflix), Beyond Paradise (BBC) and Father Brown (BBC). Voice includes: audio books (including Ariel and Winter Trees, Best Narrator, Audio Awards 2023), video games (including BAFTA nominated Valorant, Riot Games) and multiple radio dramas for Radio 4.
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Ken Ludwig
Writer
Ken Ludwig
Writer
Ken Ludwig has had six productions on Broadway and eight in London’s West End. His plays are produced in 20 languages in more than 30 countries. His first play, Lend Me a Tenor, won two Tony Awards. His first musical, Crazy For You, won the Tony and Olivier Awards for Best Musical. Ludwig has also won the Edwin Forrest Award for Contributions to the American Theatre, two Laurence Olivier Awards, two Helen Hayes Awards, the Charles MacArthur Award, and the Edgar Award for Best Mystery of the Year. His 37 plays and musicals are staged around the world and throughout the United States every night of the year.
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Simon Reade
Director
Simon Reade
Director
Simon is an acclaimed dramatist, director and producer. He adapted Zülfü Livaneli’s Bliss/Mutluluk for Arcola Theatre. While Artistic Director at Bristol Old Vic, Simon commissioned and produced Ken Ludwig’s version of The Three Musketeers, and when Literary Manager at RSC, he commissioned Ken’s play Shakespeare in Hollywood.
Other directing: Driving Miss Daisy (Barn Theatre, Cirencester), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Kurdistan), Epitaph for the Official Secrets Act (RSC), A Pure Woman (Dorchester Arts), The Turn of the Screw, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter, The Room, Lee Hall’s Two’s Company + Child of the Snow, Geraldine McCaughrean’s Not the End of the World (all Bristol Old Vic.) He’s directed and adapted Michael Morpurgo’s An Elephant in the Garden (Poonamallee Productions) and Private Peaceful which is revived on UK tour this autumn (Production Garden). He directed and produced Filter’s Theatre’s mockumentary feature What You Will.
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Robert Innes Hopkins
Designer
Robert Innes Hopkins
Designer
Theatre credits include: Stage Kiss (Hampstead Theatre), Anne Boleyn The Musical (Hever Castle), All’s Well That Ends Well, Pericles, Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus, Don Quixote, Oppenheimer (RSC), Neville’s Island, Speed the Plow, Clybourne Park (West End), Cry Baby, Kenny Morgan (Arcola), Other Desert Cities (Old Vic), The Crucible, Swallows and Amazons (Bristol Old Vic), King Lear (Chichester Festival Theatre/BAM).
Opera credits include: Die Fledermaus (Opera Theatre St. Louis), La Traviata (LA Opera, US), Tamerlano, Belshazzar (The Grange Festival), Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde, Tosca (San Francisco Opera), La Traviata (San Francisco Opera), Brand New Orchestra Shell, Siegfried, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Rigoletto (Lyric Opera Chicago), In Parenthesis, War and Peace, Rigoletto, Flying Dutchman (Welsh National Opera).
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Richard Williamson
Lighting Designer
Richard Williamson
Lighting Designer
Previous work includes: The Olivier award winning Rotterdam (West End/Off-Broadway/UK National Tour), Crocodile Fever (Arcola Theatre), Dogs of Europe (Belarus Free Theatre at the Barbican Centre and international tour), Richard III, An Arab Tragedy (Swan Theatre Stratford/International tour), Sampled and Danse Élargie (Sadler’s Wells), Great Expectations (UK tour), Little Miss Sunshine (Arcola Theatre and UK Tour), Fiddler on the Roof and The Comedy about a Bank Robbery (Istanbul), Beowulf, Septimus Bean and His Amazing Machine, Jason and the Argonauts (Unicorn), What’s On Stage ‘Best Production’ Winner Thebes Land (also video), New Nigerians, Drones Baby Drones (also video), Shrapnel (also video), Mare Rider, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Country (Arcola Theatre), A Political History of Smack and Crack (Edinburgh Fringe and Soho Theatre), Oedipus at Colonus (Cambridge Arts Theatre) and The Body (Barbican Centre).
Richard trained at LAMDA, is a Trustee of the Kings Head Theatre, is a board member of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, and develops industry-leading applications zoomOSC and zoomISO.
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Jamie Lu
Sound Designer
Jamie Lu
Sound Designer
Jamie is a London-based scenographer and an award-nominated sound designer. Jamie’s recent work includes: Loop (Theatre 503), This Little Earth, Utoya, Spin, Gentlemen, The Apology, We Started to Sing, Broken Lad (Arcola Theatre), English Kings Killing Foreigners, A Gig for Ghosts (Soho Theatre), Big Big Sky, The Haunting (New Vic Theatre), Puppy (King’s Head), The Society For New Cuisine, Argos Archives, George, Tiger (Omnibus Theatre), Abigail’s Party (Northern Stage and tour), Autumn, Sorry We Didn’t Die at Sea (Park Theatre), Foreverland, I’m Gonna Marry You Toby Maguire, Smoke, Tokyo Rose (Southwark Playhouse), The Government Inspector (Marylebone Theatre), Ada (National Youth Theatre), Shakespeare’s R&J, Hedda Gabler (Reading Rep).
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Sam Spencer Lane
Choreographer
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Aundrea Fudge
Accent Coach
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Katherine Watt
Costume Supervisor
Katherine Watt
Costume Supervisor
Katherine was born in County Durham and studied Costume Design & making at London College of Fashion. She has collaborated across a wide variety of genres within film & theatre. Working alongside award-winning dance companies such as Balletboyz (Young Men Film & Stage, Deluxe, Us & Them, England On Fire, Rumpelstiltskin Film) & Punchdrunk (The Burnt City, Sleep No More – Seoul). She is looking forward to returning to Arcola Theatre after supervising The Double Act, Crocodile Fever and Safe Haven.
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Herbe Walmsley
Production Manager
Herbe Walmsley
Production Manager
Herbe Walmsley enjoys organised fun, has a fondness for technical gubbins and is most productive when laying on the floor. Recent work includes My Brother’s a Genius, Dizzy (Sheffield Theatres), Lucy & Friends, Count Dykula (Soho Theatre & Edinburgh Fringe), Bungalow & Derry Boys (Theatre503).
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Rosie Fleming
Stage Manager (on Book)
Rosie Fleming
Stage Manager (on Book)
Rosie has recently graduated from RADA. Recent productions include After Miss Julie (Park Theatre), Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson Apt 2B. (Arcola Theatre), The Hungry Bowl (Rose Theatre), Expendable (Royal Court Theatre), All’s Well That Ends Well, Journey’s End, Playing the Victim, Gundog, Anatomy of a Suicide, Mirandolina, Light Falls (RADA).
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Mikaela Mondlane
Assistant Stage Manager
Mikaela Mondlane
Assistant Stage Manager
Mikaela Mondlane is a London-based stage manager and recent MA graduate in Production & Stage Management from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. Her recent credits include Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson and Tarantula / The Poltergeist (Arcola Theatre), Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief (The Other Palace), and Rapunzel (Theatre Peckham). Mikaela has also supported shows such as Evita (Leicester Curve), Elf: The Musical (Dominion Theatre), and A Streetcar Named Desire (Noël Coward Theatre). She is passionate about creating imaginative, inclusive and collaborative theatre.
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Ginny Schiller
Casting Director
Ginny Schiller
Casting Director
Ginny has been in-house casting director for the RSC, Chichester, Rose Theatre Kingston, ETT and Soho Theatre and has worked closely with Bath Theatre Royal and Ustinov Studio for over a decade. She has cast extensively for the West End and touring circuit, and theatres across the UK, including the Almeida, Birmingham Rep, Bristol Old Vic, Cambridge Arts, Frantic Assembly, Hampstead, Headlong, Jermyn Street, Leicester Curve, Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, Lyric Theatre Belfast, Menier Chocolate Factory, Nottingham, Oxford Playhouse, Regent’s Park, Shakespeare’s Globe, Shared Experience, Sheffield Crucible, Southwark Playhouse, Tobacco Factory, Traverse Edinburgh, West Yorkshire Playhouse and Young Vic. She has also worked on many television, film and radio productions.
Book your tickets
Event Instance Listings
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Thu 2 Apr
7.30pm
Preview
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Fri 3 Apr
7.30pm
Preview
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Sat 4 Apr
7.30pm
Preview
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Tue 7 Apr
7.30pm
Preview
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Wed 8 Apr
7.30pm
Preview
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Thu 9 Apr
7pm
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Fri 10 Apr
7.30pm
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Sat 11 Apr
3pm
Matinee
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Sat 11 Apr
7.30pm
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Mon 13 Apr
7.30pm
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Tue 14 Apr
7.30pm
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Wed 15 Apr
7.30pm
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Thu 16 Apr
7.30pm
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Fri 17 Apr
7.30pm
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Sat 18 Apr
3pm
Matinee
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Sat 18 Apr
7.30pm
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Mon 20 Apr
7.30pm
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Tue 21 Apr
7.30pm
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Wed 22 Apr
7.30pm
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Thu 23 Apr
7.30pm
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Fri 24 Apr
7.30pm
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Sat 25 Apr
3pm
Matinee
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Relaxed performance
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Sat 25 Apr
7.30pm
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Mon 27 Apr
7.30pm
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Tue 28 Apr
7.30pm
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Wed 29 Apr
7.30pm
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Captioned performance
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Thu 30 Apr
7.30pm
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Fri 1 May
7.30pm
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Sat 2 May
3pm
Matinee
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Sat 2 May
7.30pm