“Dear Jack, Dear Louise,” Jewish playwright’s most personal work, opens the 2024-25 ASF season

By Lee J. Green

A love letter to the parents of Jewish playwright Ken Ludwig gives a heartwarming opening to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s 2024-25 season.

“Dear Jack, Dear Louise” – winner of the Helen Hayes Best New Play Award in 2020 – will come to the Octagon Stage, Sept. 26 to Oct. 13.

“Ken Ludwig is a master of comedy, but this play blends comedy with a deep personal and emotional connection,” said Director Risa Brainin “It’s a love story with drama of World War II as a backdrop.”

Jack Ludwig and Louise Rabiner were introduced by their fathers. At the time, Jack was a U.S. Army captain, a military doctor stationed in Oregon as he begins writing to Louise, an aspiring actress and dancer in New York City. They hope to meet someday, as the war will allow.

But as the war continues and Jack is sent overseas, it threatens to end their relationship before it begins. Ludwig tells the story of his parents’ courtship during the war, through bringing those letters they wrote to each other to life.

“It’s a very intimate story with just the two actors on the stage as they go through different locations and situations,” said Brainin. “The story evolves through the reading/acting out of the letters and becomes more interwoven as they grow closer together despite being so far apart.”

Brainin’s first time directing a show for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival was for Ludwig’s “Comedy of Errors” in 2000. In 2012, she directed an original work from the ASF Southern Writers series called “In the Book Of,” which focuses on immigration.

The Jewish director started as an actress growing up in Chicago. She would study theatre at New York University and earn a degree from the Carnegie-Mellon University Drama Program, where she first learned directing.

“I was grateful that my parents were so supportive of me wanting to make a career in acting,” said Brainin, who traveled across the country for years as a professional theatre actress before becoming the Resident Director at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and focusing on directing as well as education.

“Starting as an actor has completely informed me as a director,” she said. “I can help actors to discover what they need to discover and to look at the big picture.”

She served for several years as artistic director of Shakespeare Santa Cruz in California. Brainin currently is a freelance director and founder of the new play development program LAUNCH PAD at the University of California in Santa Barbara.

“It has been so fulfilling to act, direct and help to mentor new playwrights,” she said. “And I’m excited that my position at UCSB encourages me to travel across the country to direct shows, then pass that on to my students.”

“It is great to be back in Alabama and at this magnificent facility,” added Brainin. “I know ‘Dear Jack, Dear Louise’ will really resonate with everyone.”