A Skidmore connection on Broadway

Nelle Nugent ’60, one of Broadway’s most prolific and successful producers, generated rave reviews last week with the opening of her revival of A.J. Gurney’s Love Letters at the Brooks Atkinson Theater. 

“A full-bodied theatrical experience,” said Hollywood Reporter. “Love Letters conquers all,” exulted NBC.

Nugent has enlisted a remarkable rotation of stars to play the roles of Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner, the life-long friends who for 50 years pour out the secrets of their hearts to each other through triumphs and despair, wars and marriages, and children and careers. Starting with Mia Farrow and Brian Dennehy in a run that ends October 10, Nugent will bring to the stage through the end of January Carol Burnett, Alan Alda, Candice Bergen, Stacy Keach, Diana Rigg, Angelica Huston and Martin Sheen.

“We’ll have a new opening every four weeks,” she notes.

The idea of staging Love Letters came to Nugent as a response to agents who constantly beseeched her for opportunities for their star actors to do short stints on Broadway while maintaining their commitments to other projects.

“The trick was to figure out what really terrific play would attract them but wouldn’t require too much time in rehearsal,” she says. “I landed almost immediately on Love Letters, which I’d initially seen in San Francisco with Diana Rigg and Stacy Keach nearly 30 years ago.”

Nugent quickly hired Greg Mosher as director. And she enlisted as a co-producer Skidmore trustee Elliott Masie, with whom she had previously collaborated on her Broadway production of The Trip to Bountiful. (Cicely Tyson’s performance earned her both a Tony Award in 2013 and – when it was produced as a film for the Lifetime Channel – an Emmy nomination.) Masie also has co-produced such major recent successes as Kinky Boots and MacBeth with Alan Cummings.

Founder of the Saratoga Springs-based MASIE Center, Masie has spent most of his career establishing a national reputation in the fields of corporate learning, organizational performance, and emerging technology. He regards his move into theater – which started about four years ago -- as a natural next step.

“In my day job, we use technology to create powerful learning experiences. In theater, we use powerful words and powerful actors to create powerful stories.”

A theater major whom Skidmore has honored with an honorary degree and the Skidmore Alumni Association has given its Distinguished Achievement Award, Nugent has produced some of Broadway’s most successful plays. In addition to The Trip to Bountiful, her credits include such Tony Award winners and nominees as Amadeus, The Life and Times of Nicholas Nickleby, The Dresser, Home, Mass Appeal, The Gin Game, The Glass Menagerie, and Time Stands Still.

It was an email from Skidmore President Philip A. Glotzbach that brought Nugent and Masie together.

“He just said, ‘you guys should know each other,’” she recalls. “So we met and liked each other right away. Elliott is way ahead of the curve on how marketing on the web is evolving. What we used to call “word of mouth” we now call “buzz,” and it’s mostly generated electronically. Elliott is really good at that and that makes him a very valuable asset.”

Masie says he’ll make a special effort to reach out to college theater departments, including Skidmore’s.

“I think this is a wonderful show for students to come and literally just see the power of words and great actors,” he says. “There's no music. There are no super costumes. There's no elaborate set. There's just the power of words.”