A.R. Gurney's Love Letters chronicles the relationship between a man and a woman
solely through their correspondence. The play tells the story of Andrew Makepeace Ladd and Melissa Gardner, whose poignantly funny friendship and ill-fated romance takes them from second grade through adolescence, maturity, and into middle age.

The production traces the lifelong correspondence of the staid, dutiful lawyer Andrew Makepeace Ladd III (Saxon) and the lively, unstable artist Melissa Gardner (Reynolds), the story of their bittersweet relationship gradually unfolds from what is written - and what is left unsaid - in their letters.  The words are both hysterical and moving, and the audience comes to know both of them intimately from their strict WASP upbringing, through later life political aspirations, love affairs, military service and artistic ambitions.

A smash hit both off and on Broadway, Love Letters captures Andy and Melissa with a precision of detail and depth of feeling only Gurney can command.

Alaina Warren Zachary  -- Melissa Gardner

Highlights of a career spanning over 40 years include the original Broadway casts of Grease, (Yes, the original!) Nine, Baby, Off-Broadway improvisational revue The Proposition, Emily in the PBS radio soap opera Harvard Square, and auditioning in Paris for French theatre legend Jean Louis Barrault and about a zillion radio and TV commercials, from Ajax to Zayres.

Most recently, Alaina appeared with William Verderber as Eleanor in The Lion in Winter directed by Suzanne Lederer, at the Santa Fe Playhouse. Of the performance, KSFR’s Dan Gerrity wrote: “gorgeous, luminous performance. Brava! Really sensational..you and William. It’s
just about as good as anything I've seen.”  Prior to that, she created the role of Judith Bliss in Hay Fever.

Last June Alaina played Mom in Alan Gelb’s Mombo directed by TV producer/director Bernie Kukoff in Chatham, NY’s PS 21.

A sampling of favorite roles include Mrs. Clancy in Lee Hoiby’s one woman opera The Italian Lesson, Ethel in Moon Over Buffalo, Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, Mrs. Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank, Truvy Jones in Steel Magnolias, The Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods, and Lake George Opera’s premiere of Ned Rorem’s Our Town.

Alaina won a grant to record the “lost” songs of Cecile Chaminade – Mon Coeur Chante. Her CD and materials are archived at Harvard at the Arthur & Elizabeth Schlessinger School of Contemporary Women.

A two-year resident of Santa Fe, she appeared with show biz buddy Lisa Carman in their two-woman show Aged To Perfection, for which she wrote the comedy. SFPH audiences saw Alaina in Benchwarmers 9 in Wedding Night by Deborah Magid and in Oscar-winner Gerry Fried’s play Morningtime Train at the Armory for the Arts.

Next projects include Robert Benjamin’s two person drama “Time Enough” directed by Clara Soister, partnering onstage once again with Bill Verderber.  In June she will be featured in The New Century by Paul Rudnick at the Playhouse, again directed by Clara Soister. www.alainaz.com 

William Verderber -- Andrew Makepeace Ladd III

Bill first worked in Santa Fe as a visiting artist at the New Mexico Repertory Theater. Most recent appearances in town include Sir Robert Cecil in The Last Tudor by Craig Barnes, Orgon in Tartuffe, Kent in King Lear and this past summer as Robert in Proof for the Santa Fe Theater Festival.

He appeared on Broadway in The Father, Present Laughter and Cyrano de Bergerac with Frank Langella, M. Butterfly and Division Street with John Lithgow, and Inherit the Wind with George C. Scott.  Off-Broadway work includes Frankie and Johnny in the Clare de Lune. In regional theatre, Bill has spent seasons at many of the nation’s finest, including the Guthrie Theatre, the Hartford Stage, Baltimore’s Center Stage, Milwaukee Repertory, Seattle Repertory, St. Louis Repertory, South Coast Repertory, as well as the La Jolla Playhouse, Actors Theater of Louisville where he appeared several times in the famed Humana Festival of new plays including two premieres by Pulitzer Prize playwright Marsha Norman.

Television appearances include Law and Order, Easy Money (shot here,) a recurring role on One Life to Live, As the World Turns, and The Guiding Light.

This spring Bill will appear in Robert Benjamin’s Time Enough, playing opposite Alaina, once again, and directed by Clara Soister.