Love Letters: One Night Only For Hugh’s View

By C.S Gilbert

Take heart, locals and repeat visitors who deeply miss lifting a glass to toast the setting sun from the best view on the island. La Concha’s roof now holds a private spa, but here come the good folks from The Studios of Key West, working to create a scenic spot for us ordinary sunset afficianados: Hugh’s View.

Hugh’s View is to be a cocktail lounge and rooftop terrace with seating for 150 and a perimeter walkway atop TSKW’s new home at Eaton and Simonton streets. When opened, it will be the highest spot on the island where the public is invited to enjoy the sunset. “You can literally see both seas, from the Gulf to the Atlantic, and all around the island,” reported Studios’ Past-President Rosi Ware. It’s particularly stunning during “poinciana season, from April till summer, with all the vivid red seen from above the tree line.” There’s also, she noted with delight, “a huge Spanish lime tree that cuts off the view of the cruise ships.”

To this end Ware, a vivacious woman of many takents, is co-starring at 8 p.m. on Monday, April 4, with librettist, author and theater journalist Stephen Kitsakos in a one-night-only production of A.J. Gurney’s beloved epistolary tour de force, Love Letters. Directing is the city’s newest, hottest shot-caller, Murphy Davis, at last a local after countless successful gigs as a visiting professional.  Kitsakos is also artistic associate of Key West Fringe and a member of TSKW’s board

The rest of the Studio’s three-story, high-ceilinged building opened early last year and fundraising is is high gear to complete the rooftop aerie for a January 2017 opening. “That’s the great hope,” Ware said, practically bubbling over at the thought.

Funding Hugh’s View is clearly a labor of love for Ware: the venue is named in memory of her late father-in-law, who spend ever-lengthening visits to Key West from the time she and husband Jeff began to visit in 1996 and especially when they moved here permanently in 2000. The elder Ware kept a lively mind and growing appreciation for Key West entertainment till his death at 91. He especially warmed to the theater, she remembered, telling of the time TahTah Du Jour of Key West Burlesque, in answer to a direct question, sat down and gave him a private demonstration of the art of simultaneous clockwise and counter-clockwise tassel twirling.

“My father GOT what Key West was all about – the openness, the strong sense of community spirit and the love of people,” said Jeff Ware. “When he passed, my wife Rosi and I could think of no greater tribute than to use our inheritance to help give future generations the best view of Key West trhis town has to offer.”

The new sunset venue will cost about a $1 million, but between TDC funding and Jeff Ware’s decision to use his father’s legacy for the project, only about half of that remains to be raised, Rosi Ware explained; Love Letters is the most recent of such efforts. There are also multiple opportunities to “name” parts of the rooftop terrace including the elevator lobby, the sculpture gardens, even a bar cart.

Debuted in 1989, and produced countless times since then, “New York City is falling head over heels for A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters, the story of a 50-year correspondence between Melissa Gardner and her childhood-friend-turned-love-interest, Andrew Makepeace Ladd III. Thanks to its simple staging, Gurney’s play, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, has been performed in theater spaces all over the world,” Broadway.com announced before the show’s 2014 revival. Scores of theater, television and motion picture stars have performed the show including Ali MacGraw with Ryan O’Neal and Mia Farrow with Brian Dennehy.

For tickets at $50, or to otherwise learn details or make a donation, go to tskw.org or phone (305) 296-0458.

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