BATH — The Chocolate Church Arts Center will present “Love Letters” by A.R. Gurney for St. Valentine’s Day on Wednesday, Feb. 14. Melissa and Andy are characters that remind listeners of their own lives, or of the lives of people they hold dear. The show will begin at 7 p.m. in the Chocolate Church Annex, 804 Washington St.

Jim and Phyllis McQuaide bring the characters Melissa and Andy to life as they chronicle two people who form a bond early in their lives that survives their being directed along different paths and into divergent careers and separate love lives. They grow up exchanging the letters that form the story’s script, and through those letters their different lives come back together in later years when they can no longer hide or deny their love for one another.

Most importantly, the audience plays a silent witness to the development of these characters as they meet the challenges of modern life while never completely losing the bond they formed as children.

The McQuaides have performed this play three times previously for a community theater in Minnesota. The play is a masterpiece of American theater hidden in a simple form of human communication: letters.

Tickets are $10 advance/$12 at the door. Tickets are available online at www.chocolatechurcharts.org and by calling the box office at 207-442-8455.

Jim and Phyllis McQuaide