The latest play produced by the Peninsula Association of Performing Artists asks a question: Can a long-distance courtship work?

Fittingly, “Dear Jack, Dear Louise” opens on Valentine’s Day.

For the characters in Ken Ludwig’s play at the Fort Columbia Theater in Chinook, however, there are no modern communications: no texts, emails, FaceTime or Zoom.

Instead, because it is set during the 1940s, the U.S. Post Office Department is trusted with cherished written correspondence that will shape their lives.

Liam McCaughey and Carly Keone concede they face a challenge portraying pen pals separated by 3,000 miles during World War II. They act from opposite sides of the stage, writing and reading letters that deepen their relationship — even before their characters have met.

“We don’t even look at each other, our lines of sight are crossing,” McCaughey said. “It’s a different experience, trying to match energy. It is an extra challenge.”

Uncertainty

The director, Angela Grote, a longtime leader in Long Beach Peninsula theater, was entranced by the script, but had to cajole the copyright holders to permit an amateur troupe to perform it. PAPA will be the first.

“My grandparents were wartime pen pals and Ken Ludwig based it on his parents, so when I read it, it reminded me of my grandparents,” she said. “It is funny, and yet still has the uncertainty and other things that go along with wartime.”

Ludwig, a lawyer-turned-playwright, broke through with “Lend Me a Tenor” in 1986 and later “Crazy for You.”

He has penned mysteries with Sherlock Holmes themes including “The Game’s Afoot,” staged at Cannon Beach’s Coaster Theatre last September, coincidentally directed by John Hoff, who appeared in the title role of “Macbeth” in Astoria in 2023 with McCaughey as the young prince Malcolm.

Family history

McCaughey portrays Capt. Jack Ludwig, a U.S. Army surgeon treating wounded soldiers in Medford. Keone is Louise Rabiner, an aspiring singer-dancer trying to break into New York’s cutthroat Broadway scene.

The characters in the 2019 play are based on Ludwig’s parents. “I had to recreate the actual correspondence because my mother actually burned all of the letters — she thought they were too personal and didn’t want anyone to see them,” he told an interviewer from the American Theatre Magazine.

Both characters are Jewish, as is McCaughey. He is a recent graduate of Astoria High School who played the lead in his school’s production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” He appeared as the oldest Von Trapp boy in PAPA’s 2023 musical “The Sound of Music” in which Keone played Maria.

“It’s great to play a Jew,” he said. “It is really cool, because my grandfather was in World War II and D-Day in the U.S. Army. I get to draw from family and personal history.”

Keone, who has acted on both sides of the Columbia River, directed “Little Women” for PAPA last summer and was previously at the helm for “Letters to Anne of Green Gables.”

She said she is relishing the role, although noting the heavy line load. Like professional productions, the actors speak the letters from memory rather than read them. “It is really wonderful for me,” she said. “Louise is me — if I was Jewish and making a go for Broadway.”

McCaughey’s mother, Susan, who is from the East Coast, was enlisted to help with Louise’s speech patterns. “That was my biggest insecurity,” Keone said. “It is in the 1940s and you don’t often see much of that on TV, so I didn’t know how she speaks.”

Connection

Grote, who has shaped church and children’s projects, is directing her first full show at PAPA. She and her family have been involved in productions for more than a decade. In answering her cast’s questions on motivation, she has brought letters from the era and read them aloud at rehearsals.

She believes the need for human connection during the characters’ wartime separation is at the heart of the play’s success.

“Their connection with each other gets them through it,” Grote said. “We do need each other. Letter writing is old fashioned, but how many of us still like getting a letter in the mail — just a little note saying somebody is thinking about them and cares about them?”

‘Dear Jack, Dear Louise’

A play by Ken Ludwig, directed by Angela Grote, presented by the Peninsula Association of Performing Artists at the Fort Columbia Theater in Chinook.

Showtimes at 7 p.m. Feb. 14 and 15 Feb. 21 and 22, Feb. 28 and March 1; 2 p.m. Feb. 16, Feb. 23 and March 2.

Tickets are $16 to $19 online at www.papatheater.com or at Okie’s Thirftway Market in Ocean Park. A Washington State Parks Discover Pass is not needed to park and attend the theater.