THE LAST OF THE LOVE LETTERS World Premiere Play By Ngozi Anyanwu Directed by Patricia McGregor Neil Pepe Artistic Director Jeffory Lawson Managing Director presents THE LAST OF THE LOVE LETTERS By Ngozi Anyanwu Directed by Patricia McGregor You sets production stage manager Ngozi Anyanwu Yu-Hsuan Chen Jonathan Castanien You No.2 costumes assistant stage manager Daniel J. Watts Dede Ayite Lissette Velez-Cross Person lights production manager Xavier Scott Evans Stacey Derosier Zach Longstreet sound director of development Twi McCallum Nick Luckenbaugh casting director of marketing Telsey + Company Claire Graves Will Cantler, CSA associate artistic director Karyn Casl, CSA Annie MacRae Destiny Lilly, CSA general manager press representative Pamela Adams Boneau/Bryan-Brown Place: Wherever Time: Whenever The Last of the Love Letters will be performed without an intermission from University of California, San Diego. PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTE XAVIER SCOTT EVANS (Person) is an actor-writer If I have art best known for the roles of Akil in HBO Max’s I have love “Love Life” Season 2 Ep. 7 (’21), Officer Grey in If I have love Anna Gutto’s “Paradise Highway” (’21), Manny I am blessed in Bottom of the 9th (‘19), “Shades of Blue” (‘16), If I am blessed and “Blue Bloods” (‘14). His roles in the theater Then, include Person in Atlantic Theater Company’s Perhaps this life that is riddled with suffering Off-Broadway production of Ngozi Anyanwu’s and longing, The Last of the Love Letters directed by Patricia is worth living. McGregor. He starred as Fish in The Royale by Or perhaps Marco Ramirez and Jonny in The Mystery of Love ... & Sex by Bathsheba Doran. Graduate of Circle in I should run while I can. the Square Theater School class of 2014 and a proud Wilsonian Soldier. DANIEL J. WATTS (You No.2). Broadway/Off-Broad- LAND way: TINA (2020 Tony Award Nominee and Outer Critics Circle Award), Hamilton, The Color Purple, ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Disney’s The Little Mermaid (OBC), Memphis We acknowledge that the Atlantic Theater (OBC), In The Heights, Ghost (OBC), Motown Company and Atlantic Acting School buildings (OBC), A!er Midnight (OBC). Off-Broadway: Death are on the traditional lands of the Lenape people. of the Last Black Man in the Entire World AKA We pay our respects to the Lenape and to the The Negro Book of the Dead (Signature Theatre), Indigenous caretakers of these lands. Whorl Inside A Loop (2nd Stage). TV/Film: “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon), “The Last OG” (TBS), “Blindspot” (NBC), “Vinyl” (HBO), “The Deuce” (HBO), “Boardwalk Empire” (HBO), BIOGRAPHIES “The Night Of” (HBO), “Broad City” (Comedy Central), “The Good Wife” (CBS), “Odd Mom Out” NGOZI ANYANWU (Playwright, You) is a playwright, (Bravo), “Person Of Interest” (CBS). Regional: storyteller, and most recently a 2020 Steinberg 2019 Barrymore Award (People’s Light) and 2020 Playwright Award winner. Previous productions LA Ovation Award (Geffen Playhouse) for Best include Good Grief (Vineyard Theatre in NYC/ Featured Actor for his portrayal of Sammy Davis, Center Theatre Group in LA) and The Homecoming Jr. in Lights Out: Nat “King” Cole opposite Dulé Queen (sold-out world premiere run at Atlantic Hill. Original Work: Daniel J. Watts’ The Jam: Theater Company). Good Grief was on the Kilroys Only Child 2020 Public Theater Under The Radar List 2016 and a semifinalist for the Princess Grace Festival and has also streamed as part of the Award, and won the Humanitas Award. The Signature Theater (DC) 2020-2021 season. Homecoming Queen was on the Kilroys List 2017 TED talk “To Accomplish Great Things, You and was a Leah Ryan Finalist. Her play Nike... Need to Let Paint Dry” appears at go.Ted.com/ (Kilroys List 2017) was workshopped at The New danieljwatts. Artist in residence at ASU Gammage, Black Fest in conjunction with The Lark and The contributing artist for Armstrong Now with the Strand Festival in conjunction with A.C.T and The Louis Armstrong House, and NYU Tisch Space on Ryder Farm. Ngozi also has commissions New Studio adjunct professor. BFA Graduate with NYU, The Old Globe, Two Rivers Theatre, Elon University Music Theatre Program. Atlantic Theater, and Steppenwolf. Anyanwu has 2021 Commencement Speaker. 2011 Young also received residencies from LCT3, Space on Alumnus Award Recipient. wattswords.com Ryder Farm, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, IG/Twitter: @dwattsword The New Harmony Project, New York Stage and Film, and Page 73. She attended Point Park PATRICIA McGREGOR (Director, she/her/hers). Born University (BA) and received her MFA in Acting in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, Patricia McGregor is a director and writer working in theater, TV/film, American Visionary Award. More work on her and music. McGregor has twice been profiled by website: yuhsuanchendesign.com The New York Times for her direction of world premieres. Productions include Lights Out: DEDE AYITE (Costume Designer) is a two time Nat “King” Cole (co-writer and director, Geffen Tony-nominated costume designer whose Playhouse, People’s Light); Sisters In Law (Wallis Broadway credits include A Soldier’s Play, Slave Annenberg); What You Are, A Midsummer Night’s Play, American Son, and Children of a Lesser Dream, Measure for Measure (The Old Globe); God. Select Off-Broadway credits include Merry Skeleton Crew (Geffen Playhouse, Studio Theater); Wives (The Public); Secret Life of Bees, Marie and Good Grief (Center Theater Group); Hamlet Rosetta (Atlantic); By The Way, Meet Vera Stark (The Public Theater); Place (BAM); The Parchman (Signature); BLKS, School Girls… (MCC); Bella: Hour (The Guthrie Theater); Ugly Lies the Bone An American Tall Tale (Playwrights Horizons); (Roundabout Theatre Company); brownsville The Royale (Lincoln Center); Toni Stone (Round- song… (Lincoln Center); Indomitable: James Brown about). Regionally, Ayite’s work has appeared (The Apollo); Holding It Down (Metropolitan at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Steppenwolf, Museum); A Raisin in the Sun, The Winter’s Tale, Arena Stage, and more. She has worked in Spunk (California Shakespeare Theater); Adoration television with Netflix, Comedy Central, and FOX of the Old Woman (INTAR); Blood Dazzler (Harlem Shortcoms. Ayite earned her MFA at the Yale Stage); Four Electric Ghosts (The Kitchen); and School of Drama and has received an Obie, Lucille the world premiere of Hurt Village (Signature Lortel, Helen Hayes, Theatre Bay Area, and Jeff Theatre Company). For many years she has awards, along with four Drama Desk nominations. directed The 24-Hour Plays on Broadway. She served as director for HBO’s emerging writer’s STACEY DEROSIER (Lighting Designer). NYC lighting showcase and tour consultant to Raphael Saadiq designer credits: The Great Filter (The Wild and J Cole. Additionally, she was a directing Project), PEEP SHOW (Soho Rep, Project Number shadow on HBO’s “Lovecra# Country.” Patricia One), A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction co-founded Angela’s Pulse with her sister, (Baltimore Center Stage), The Glorious World of choreographer, and organizer Paloma McGregor, Crowns, Kinks, and Curls (Baltimore Center Stage), and is Artist in Residence for Adam Driver’s Arts Letters to My Father (M-34), American Dreams in the Armed Forces and serves on the advisory (The Working Theater), Here We Are (Theater for board for the Parent Artist Advocacy League. One), School Girls, Or the African Mean Girls Play She is a member of the National Theater’s (Berkeley Rep), All the Natalie Portmans (MCC International Director’s Lab and a Usual Suspect Theater), Stew (Page 73), How to Load a Musket at New York Theater Workshop. McGregor (Less Than Rent), The Copper Children (Oregon attended the Yale School of Drama, where she Shakespeare Festival), Men on Boats (Baltimore was a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow and Artistic Center Stage), for all the women who thought they Director of the Yale Cabaret. were Mad (Soho Rep), White Noise conceived by Daniel Fish (NYU Skirball), Playing Hot! (Pipeline YU-HSUAN CHEN (Scenic Designer) is an LA and Theater Company), Mies Julie and Dance of Death NYC-based set and production designer from (Classic Stage Company), Novenas For a Lost Taipei, Taiwan. Selected theater credits include Hospital, No One is Forgotten, Lewiston/Clarkston Our Dear Dead Drug Lord (WP Theater/Second (Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater), and 2018 Lilly Stage) – 2020 Obie Award for Outstanding Set Award Daryl Roth Prize recipient. Design winner, 2020 Lortel Award Nominee; What to Send Up When it Goes Down (The TWI McCALLUM (Sound Designer) is originally Movement Theater Company); The Homecoming from Baltimore, MD. Her favorite theatrical credits Queen (Atlantic Theater Company); Measure for include Kansas City Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, Measure (Public Theater Mobile Unit); Pump Girl Atlantic Theater Company for Kids, and the new (Irish Rep); and more. She has also worked comedy play Chicken & Biscuits in fall 2021 as the in many regional theaters and venues in Asia. first woman of color sound designer on Broadway. Her film credits are numerous and include She has worked in television/digital production Hulu’s initiative 29 “Your Attention Please” for STARZ, NBC, and Marvel. Most importantly, and “Jie-Jie,” which won the HBO Asian Pacific she is a former student of Howard University’s theatre department and a graduate of Yale School casts for theater, film, television, and commercials. of Drama’s one-year sound program. When not The Telsey Office is dedicated to creating safe, working, she loves archery, learning American equitable, and anti-racist spaces through Sign Language, zombie video games, and taking collaboration, artistry, heart, accountability, care of her pet snails. and advocacy. JOSHUA YOCOM (Prop Supervisor) is pleased to ACTORS EQUITY ASSOCIATION (“Equity”), founded in return to Atlantic! Some of his memorable New 1913, is the U.S. labor union that represents more York premieres include The Humans (Roundabout than 50,000 actors and stage managers.