ArtsUP! LA and Returning Soldiers Speak believe in the transformative power of story. Through dialogue, workshop, and performance, veterans, first responders, and their families gain new understanding about themselves and the world around them.
 
For the past 6 months, ArtsUP! LA and Returning Soldiers Speak have been collecting, researching, and curating letters and correspondence written by military personnel to members of their family and friends during times of war. The letters and correspondence embody the hopes, fears, and observations of those deployed during wartime from the Revolutionary War to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.
 
The letters and correspondence will be the inspiration for an original theater performance, performed by professional actors—many of them veterans—and presented in Los Angeles at The Blue Door Theater in 2026. Using the letters and correspondence as inspiration, selected veterans have written original monologues and scenes as part of a performance piece including readings of the letters.