Pegasus Theatre Presents
Hate Mail
Written by Bill Corbett and Kira Obolensky
Directed by David Meglino
Pegasus Theatre kicks off its 37th Season with “Hate Mail” by Bill Corbett and Kira Obolensky. In the words of the authors, “Hate Mail” is “..an alternative to ‘Love Letters’…” by A.R. Gurney. The production opens on Thursday, October 20 and plays through November 5 at the Bath House Cultural Center in Dallas.
When Preston writes a furious letter to a store demanding a refund for a broken snow globe, he gets Assistant Manager Dahlia fired—and finds a vengeful epistolary match. In this wickedly funny alternative to “Love Letters”, the two embark on an epic, often acrimonious, correspondence as their lives intertwine.
David Meglino directs the cast which consists of J.R. Bradford as Preston and Bethany Soder as Dahlia. Aidan Wright will design the set, Cooper Mitchell will design lights, and Alex Wade provides the sound design.
Performances
Thursday, October 20..........8 pm
Friday, October 21 .............8 pm
Saturday, October 22 ..........2 pm
Saturday, October 22 ..........8 pm
Thursday, October 27......... 8 pm
Friday, October 28 ....…….. 8 pm
Saturday, October 29 ....…. 2 pm
Saturday, October 29 ........ 8 pm
Thursday, November 3 ........8 pm
Friday, November 4 .............8 pm
Saturday, November 5....…..2 pm
Saturday, November 5 ........8 pm
Tickets $15 - $35
Student, Senior, Children, Military, and Restricted View discounted tickets available.
Tickets may be purchased online at: https://our.show/pegasus-theatre1/hatemail36890
A Note from the Authors
Hate Mail was originally inspired by two things: 1) the idea of doing a parody of A.R. Gumey's much-produced epistolary play Love Letters, and 2) the intriguing possibility of writing it in actual correspondence between two authors.
We quickly strayed from the first idea, and never went back. While we retained the title from that initial impulse, it was clear from our very first working conversations that Hate Mail would not be a parody (or a "spoof," or-our favorite-a "wacky send-up") of Love Letters, which neither of the authors had actually even seen at the start of this project. After reading Love Letters, it became clear that what we had in mind-a relationship traced through what is mainly acrimonious correspondence, beginning with a complaint letter-could no more be called a parody of Love Letters than it would be of Dear Liar, 84 Charing Cross Road, Not About Heroes, or any other exchangeof-letters play. For starters, Hate Mail takes place over a far shorter stretch of the characters' lives than does Love Letters; and its two correspondents live in a nastier, more venal-and admittedly, much sillier-world, at that. But we do owe Mr. Gurney a debt of gratitude for the inspiration. If anything, we'll call it an alternative to Love Letters (thanks to Kira's husband Irve Dell for this nifty way of putting it).
We did, however, stay very much on track with the second part of this experiment. Hate Mail was written in correspondence between us-each of us writing in character (Kira as DAHLIA and Bill as PRESTON). It was done mostly by fax, though partly on the Internet (the last part of the play, that is, which takes place on the much-hyped "net") and written while we were in numerous parts of the country: New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Amarillo, Texas.
Photo of Bethany Soder and J.R. Bradford by John Harvey
