‘Love Letters’ For A Friend And Daughter, Sat. Evening

DANBURY — A special benefit performance of Love Letters will be presented Saturday, February 17, at Danbury High School. All proceeds from ticket sales will benefit the Tam Farrow Scholarship Fund, which was established last fall from Rosbury resident Kirsten Pratt.

Mia Farrow and Sam Waterston will star in A.R. Gurney’s 90-minute production.

At Shepaug High School in Washington (Conn.), every senior is required to do a year-long senior year project. The students are free to create the themes of their projects, but the outcome of each project should benefit the community at large whenever possible.

Kirsten Pratt has created something that will benefit and entertain the community while also honoring the memory of her friend Tam Farrow, a teenager who died less than a year ago. Tam Farrow aughter of the actress Mia Farrow and a dear friend of Miss Pratt.

The girls met became fast friends when both were in seventh grade. Miss Pratt’s family had just moved into Roxbury, and Miss Farrow had recently moved into the Bridgewater home of her new family.

Tam Farrow had a reputation as someone who was always looking for a way to help others. Her still-mourning friend Kirsten Pratt also knew that one of Tam Farrow’s goals was to assemble a scholarship fund for those pursuing careers in special education and the arts.

Following her friend’s wishes, there will be two scholarships awarded at the end of the 2000-01 school year in memory of Tam Farrow. One will be given to an art student, and another will go to a senior planning to specialize in special education in college, just as Miss Farrow had wanted.

The award-winning Love Letters, a bare-bones classic by A.R. Gurney, is a 90-minute story of two childhood soulmates who carry out a 60-year relationship through letters. The play has enjoyed tremendous success since its 1989 debut.

Love Letters chronicles the friendship between the staid, dutiful lawyer Andrew Makepeace Ladd, III, and the lively, unstable artist Melissa Gardner, their tale gradually unfolding through the correspondence they share over the course of their lives.

Audiences are captivated by Andy and Melissa’s bittersweet relationship, from the happy exuberance of childhood confidences and the teasing flirtations of college youth to the passionate thrill of secret lovers and the empty heartache of a love gone wrong. The work’s two-character cast reads the play side-by-side at a desk.

Tickets, which will be available at the door, are $40 each, or $65 for those who wish to attend a post-performance reception with the actors. Call 860/355-5323 for additional information.