Courtesy Stumptown Stages / Submitted photoEllen Travolta and Jack Bannon star in Stumptown Stages’ production of “Love Letters.”

Planning a Valentine’s Day getaway? If so, A.R. Gurney’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated play “Love Letters,” running Feb. 12-14 at Brunish Theatre inside Antoinette Hatfield Hall in Portland, is one romantic reason to get out of town.

Longtime television and film stars Ellen Travolta and Jack Bannon play Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, childhood friends who come to mean much more to each other than they ever expected.

“Love Letters” isn’t a typical play. The simple staging includes a table and two chairs, one for Melissa and one for Andrew, who read to the audience letters recounting 50 years of correspondence between them. Spanning roughly from the 1930s to the 1970s, the duo’s earliest communication started simply as thank you notes and summer camp postcards. They continued to exchange letters through boarding school, college, Andy’s tour at war and beyond. And though the two married other people, they remained deeply attached to one another. Through years of letters, Gurney shows how strong the two characters’ love was despite their physical distance.

“Theatre has the power to change lives” in the age of iPhones and iPads, says Travolta. “The arts are the way we express ourselves, and with technology it’s easy to forget how to communicate.”

The play is a romantic reminder of the power of old fashioned pen and paper, as well as another form of communication getting lost among the text messages. “It’s theater down to its most simple level, the spoken word,” said John Tillinger, literary consultant for the first theater to produce “Love Letters” in 1988.

Gurney originally wrote “Love Letters” as a book, and after it failed to get published, he rewrote it as a play. Instead of giving a scheduled speech at the New York Public Library, he sprung a reading of the play on the audience.

“We started at (4 p.m.), and I put in an arbitrary intermission at (5 p.m.), saying, ‘Well, I’m sure a lot of you have to go,’” Gurney said. “And nobody wanted to leave! So I figured we had something.”

The play became popular, and after a 96-show run on Broadway in 1989, “Love Letters” returned to Broadway in 2014. Thanks to Stumptown Stages it’s coming to Portland in February. Ticket prices range from $56 to $81. To purchase tickets and for more information, go to www.portland5.com or call 800-273-1530.

— Reporter: 541-383-0350, kmccool@bendbulletin.com