Letters from Max

by Sarah Ruhl
based on the book by Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo

July 17-19 and July 22-26
Wednesdays - Saturdays at 7:30pm; Sundays at 3pm

An adaptation of Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo's 2018 book, Letters from Max: A Poet, a Teacher, a Friendship, this intimate, poetic play explores the relationship between Sarah and her former student, Max.

When poet Max Ritvo applies to Sarah Ruhl's playwriting workshop, he finds not only a mentor, but a friend. When his childhood cancer returns, the two begin writing letters to each other in a tender, poetic, and unexpectedly humorous meditation on friendship, art, and mortality.

Their correspondence explores questions of creating art, the meaning of work, and the strange experience of being human, becoming a profound conversation about the afterlife, legacy, and how we give shape to our fleeting time on earth. An emotional mosaic of letters, poetry, music and dialogue, Letters from Max is both a love letter to the power of language and a testament to the enduring bonds we create.

"Warm and literary... a theatrical act of remembrance and a sacrament of grief, but it's also a comedy….Go see the play, and feel their relationship alive and tingling." – The New York Times

"Intimate... a work about art and death and about how art deals with death." – New York Stage Review

"Affecting... This epistolary play sends the message that a life cut short can call us to embrace our own lives and—as Max tells Sarah in a dream—to feel them." – Time Out NY

SARAH RUHL’S plays include In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, The Clean House, Passion Play, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Melancholy Play, For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday, The Oldest Boy, Stage Kiss, Dear Elizabeth, Eurydice, How to Transcend a Happy Marriage, Orlando, Late: a cowboy song, and a translation of Three Sisters. She has been a two-time Pulitzer prize finalist and a Tony award nominee. Her plays have been produced on and off Broadway, around the country, and internationally, where they have been translated into over fifteen languages.

Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her M.F.A. from Brown University, where she studied with Paula Vogel. She has received the Steinberg Award, the Samuel French Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, the Whiting Award, the Lily Award, a PEN Award for mid-career playwrights, and the MacArthur Award. You can read more about her work on www.SarahRuhlplaywright.com. Her new book 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write was a New York Times notable book of the year, and she most recently published Letters from Max with Max Ritvo. She teaches at the Yale School of Drama, and she lives in Brooklyn with her family.