Ken Ludwig at Studio 54 in New York City, April 29, 2019. (Walter McBride\/WireImage\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
They have earned him a passel of awards \u2014 multiple Tonys and Oliviers, among others \u2014 and have been performed around the world. A recent tally revealed there are approximately 1,000 productions of a Ludwig play in the U.S. alone every year.<\/p>\n
But his latest is largely different from the door-slamming, slapstick comedies that made him famous.
The play is set in 1942. Jack, as Jacob preferred to be called, grew up in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and was drafted into the military shortly after graduating from medical school, where he treated wounded soldiers returning from the Pacific. Louise, a graduate of New York\u2019s High School of Music & Art, is a would-be showgirl.<\/p>\n
Both their fathers were immigrant tailors from Russia and they suggest the couple begin a correspondence. They do and gradually get to know each other, writing almost daily.<\/p>\n
Sometimes it\u2019s just a sentence or two, a short missive to reassure the other that all is well. Sometimes the letters are commentaries on the day\u2019s events. Louise writes about her auditions; Jack frequently describes his failed attempts to get a leave so he can come meet her. But they slowly start to reveal themselves, and it\u2019s clear both like what they discover.<\/p>\n
In an interview, Ludwig says the play is only based on his parents\u2019 correspondence. His mother destroyed the actual letters \u2014 apparently, Ludwig thinks, because they contained intimacies not suitable for public consumption.<\/p>\n
So while much of the play is fiction, the happy ending isn\u2019t. Jack and Louise were in fact married for 50 years and raised two children, Ken and his brother, Eugene, in York, Pennsylvania. The relatively small town had \u201ca thriving Jewish community,\u201d including three synagogues.<\/p>\n
The Ludwigs belonged to the Reform temple, presided over by a rabbi \u2014 an \u201cEmma Goldman, radical leftist Reform rabbi,\u201d in Ludwig\u2019s description \u2014 who preferred no yarmulkes or Hebrew in his services. Ludwig celebrated his bar mitzvah and his confirmation in the synagogue.<\/p>\n
Once a year, Ludwig would visit Louise\u2019s parents in Brooklyn, a trip that always included at least one Broadway show. That\u2019s where his heart was, in theater.<\/p>\n
Ludwig began writing plays in high school. While his parents were supportive of his ambition, they recognized \u201cthe chances of making a living writing plays is so minuscule they wanted me to get a degree so I\u2019d have something to fall back on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ludwig did them proud. Not only did he get an undergraduate degree, he graduated from Harvard Law School and even went to Cambridge University in England to major in restoration drama, a field concerned with plays written in England in the 17th century \u2014 an esoteric subject if there ever was one.<\/p>\n
It was only after he started working as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., that Ludwig began concentrating on plays, sometimes writing for four hours in the morning before heading to the office for his day job.
After running in a Washington basement, the play was picked up for a brief off-Broadway run.
What are his hopes for \u201cDear Jack, Dear Louise\u201d?<\/p>\n
\u201cLike any playwright, my hope is that it gets produced a lot throughout the U.S. and Europe,\u201d Ludwig said. \u201cI write because I want people to see my play. I want people to love my play. I want people to find themselves in my play.\u201d<\/p>\n
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