Effortless to Stage. Impossible to Forget.
Whether you're a small-town playhouse or a regional theater, Love Letters is easy to stage while delivering a deeply emotional theater-going experience for your community.
Minimal Set. Maximum Impact.
Just two desks, two chairs, and a simple lighting setup. Staging couldn’t be easier.
Beloved Cast. Proven Success.
Hit production: Three years of sold-out performances at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, with growing demand
Minnesota legends: Seasoned performers Don Shelby and Nancy Nelson draw crowds and deliver unforgettable performances
Audience favorite: A proven draw with enthusiastic audiences
Media-ready: Don and Nancy are available to support each production with interviews and local appearances. See examples here.
Gurney’s Masterpiece
Love Letters by acclaimed playwright A.R. Gurney is a tender, funny, and deeply moving portrait of a lifelong relationship told through a series of handwritten notes, cards, and letters.
Gurney—celebrated for his sharp insight into upper-class American life—crafts a poignant narrative around Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, childhood friends whose correspondence spans decades.
With no elaborate sets or flashy effects, this deceptively simple play delivers a gut-punch of nostalgia, missed chances, and the haunting question: what if your soulmate was always just one letter away? Written by a Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright, Love Letters proves that some of the most powerful drama lives between the lines.
Meet the Cast
Don and Nancy come to “Love Letters” as beloved friends for more than four decades. That personal background brings a genuine connection to their performances.
Learn more about Nancy and Don below.
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Nancy Nelson was born and raised in Minneapolis and has spent her entire life on television, stage, and radio. First on stage at age eight, she was still in high school when she did her first television show, “Date with Dino.”
After high school graduation she began nearly two decades as a professional actor on stage at the Old Log Theater, was the midnight weather girl at WCCO-TV, host of “What’s New?”, news anchor/reporter at Channel 11 TV and played a role in the movie Airport.
Nancy became a commuting wife when hired to anchor news at KKTV Los Angeles where she won two Emmy Awards for investigative reporting. She did a stint on KABC Radio, L.A.
Nancy’s presence went global, and she became known as the “International Infomercial Queen” named by Forbes Magazine as the most influential international infomercial presenter of the decade.
This former Miss Minnesota was inducted into the Broadcast Hall of Fame, swam with dolphins, flew with the Blue Angels, drove a race car with Paul Newman, broadcast from the Academy Awards, threw out a Twins first pitch, traveled the world interviewing movie stars, presidents, and astronauts, and she donated a kidney.
Nancy is passionately dedicated to working on behalf of abused women, children, animals, the environment, the homeless, and the hungry. Today is a Greeter-Emcee at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres.
Nancy’s greatest blessing, she says, was the privilege of being married to her Billy, WCCO-TV news anchor Bill Carlson. And now, “such sweet joy to share the stage with my dear, remarkable Don Shelby.”
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Don Shelby is considered the most decorated local news anchor in the country, with two George Foster Peabody awards (the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), three National Emmys with the WCCO-TV I-Team, and the Distinguished Service Award from the National Society of Professional Journalists, among hundreds of other honors.
He anchored WCCO-TV’s newscasts for 32 of his 55-year career in journalism. But, like his predecessor, Dave Moore, his very first love was theater. Upon his retirement form the news desk in 2011, Don appeared in the Lab Theater’s production of Rocky Horror, appearing with numerous Guthrie actors at the Varsity Theater.
Don was a featured actor in Safe at Home at the Mixed Blood Theatre, and has performed more than 200 times, in character, as Mark Twain in shows at performing arts centers throughout Minnesota, in New Orleans, and even aboard the legendary Delta Queen Riverboat on the Mississippi River in St. Louis.
Don was inducted into the Broadcast Hall of Fame, as well as the Silver and Gold Circles by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He is a Trustee of the Science Museum of Minnesota, as well as seven other boards ranging from climate change to racial healing. He is on the Board of Directors of VocalEssence and has helped raise more than $100 million in charitable donations.
Don is the author of the book The Season Never Ends and has written forewords to more than a dozen. books. He is delighted to be working with one of his dearest friends, Nancy Nelson, on stage.