What happens when two 14-year-old girls, separated by an ocean, begin exchanging letters and end up sharing nearly 50 years of their lives without ever meeting face-to-face? That’s the touching premise of Pen Pals, the hit Off-Broadway play by Michael Griffo, making its Oregon premiere at Portland’s triangle productions! November 19 through December 6, 2026. The production reunites Helen Raptis and Beth Willis, who delighted audiences in last season’s The Savannah Sipping Society. This time, they’re trading cocktails and Southern sass for handwritten letters, lifelong secrets, and a friendship that proves you don’t have to be in the same room to be someone’s soulmate.
Raptis plays Bernie, a New Jersey teenager with dreams of performing onstage, while Willis portrays Mags, a working-class girl from Sheffield, England, who helps out at her family’s pub and has a passion for art. Their friendship begins with a simple letter and continues through marriages, children, heartbreak, illness, loss, and all the unexpected twists life throws their way. Based on the playwright’s own mother’s correspondence with a British pen pal, the story is a reminder that some of our most meaningful relationships are built not on proximity but on trust, acceptance, and unconditional love.
When I caught up with Raptis and Willis, it quickly became apparent that their real-life friendship is nearly as entertaining as the one they portray onstage. There was laughter, a few unexpected revelations, some deeply personal reflections, and even a story involving six shots of Jägermeister. But more on that later.
For Willis, the appeal of Pen Pals is the remarkable consistency of a friendship that survives nearly five decades.
“These women are so devoted to each other,” Willis explained. “They’ve never seen each other’s faces. There’s a line that my character delivers about the fact that she’s never seen the sparkle in Bernie’s eyes, and yet they’re best friends in every sense of the word.”
Willis believes the relationship goes beyond an ordinary friendship. “They know the light and the darkness in each other. They know the good and the bad and the ugly,” she said. “I think I can use the term true love because that’s really what it is. It’s two people that are straight-up soulmates.”
Raptis agreed, comparing Bernie and Mags to those rare friends who can go months or even years without speaking, only to pick up exactly where they left off. When director Donald Horn approached her about reuniting with Willis for the production, she didn’t hesitate.
“The second Don said, ‘Would you like to do this with Beth?’ I said yes,” Raptis recalled.
“Same,” Willis chimed in.
Although Bernie and Mags live on opposite sides of the Atlantic, Raptis pointed out that their similarities are just as important as their differences. Both come from blue-collar families, both are navigating adolescence, and both are searching for someone who understands them. They also share artistic interests. Bernie loves singing and acting, while Mags gravitates toward drawing and painting.
As the years pass, their letters become a lifeline through life’s greatest joys and darkest moments. And for Raptis, some of those moments hit especially close to home.
One of the play’s storylines involves Bernie’s breast cancer diagnosis, an experience Raptis knows personally.
“I connect with Bernie in the breast cancer diagnosis because I’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer,” she shared. “It’s been 26 years since my diagnosis, so I’m doing great. But when I talk about it, it’s as if I just was diagnosed yesterday. Sometimes that comes right back to you.”
She also spoke about the emotional weight of losing loved ones. Having experienced the deaths of friends and family members, she understands how quickly grief can resurface.
“I think anybody who comes to see Pen Pals is going to see themselves,” Raptis said. “They’re going to connect to parts of Mags and parts of Bernie and things that happen in life that we’ve all been through.”
Willis agreed that the play contains several emotional surprises, although she was determined not to reveal too much. After all, nobody likes a spoiler, particularly when the story spans half a century.
Naturally, our conversation turned to the lost art of letter writing. In an age of texting, social media, and instant communication, have we forgotten the delicious anticipation of waiting for something personal to arrive in the mailbox?
Willis doesn’t think that feeling has disappeared. She believes it’s simply been compressed into those nerve-racking moments when someone sends a deeply personal text and waits for a response.
“Maybe the bubble pops up and maybe the three dots pop up, and then the bubble goes away,” she explained, describing that familiar moment of digital anxiety. “I think it still exists. I think it just exists in much smaller, more concentrated doses.”
Raptis, meanwhile, remembers waiting by the telephone as a teenager and still finds herself hoping for a personal letter or greeting card whenever she checks the mail.
Of course, reality usually delivers bills and junk mail.
She also confessed that she still opens birthday cards with the faint hope that money might fall out, a habit left over from childhood when her grandmother sent checks.
“Oh, damn it,” she laughed, describing the disappointment when there’s nothing inside.
I could certainly relate. Some childhood traditions never die, especially those involving cash.
Both women still appreciate receiving handwritten cards. Raptis considers herself a dedicated card sender, while Willis occasionally designs personalized greeting cards for friends using her graphic design skills.
That revelation prompted Raptis to launch into an enthusiastic inventory of Willis’s many talents.
“Okay, wait, wait, wait, Beth,” she interrupted. “I’ve got to explain this, Mike, about Beth. She is multi-talented. Seriously, she is so talented.”
According to Raptis, Willis sings, plays musical instruments, speaks fluent French, knows Spanish, has an impressive memory, and has even worked as a sports host. Apparently, working with Willis means discovering another hidden talent at nearly every rehearsal.
Then came the story about the Jägermeister.
Willis recalled performing at a restaurant or bar where an audience member later complimented her rendition of “Under the Boardwalk.” There was just one problem: she didn’t remember performing it.
“I had received six shots of Jägermeister from the audience the night before,” Willis admitted, explaining that she apparently learned the song on the spot.
“See what she’s like? Isn’t she amazing?” Raptis exclaimed.
I couldn’t argue with that. Although I might recommend a little less Jägermeister before opening night.
Beyond the humor, Pen Pals also explores something especially meaningful to the LGBTQ+ community: chosen family. I asked how Bernie and Mags demonstrate that family isn’t always defined by blood or geography.
Willis explained that Mags is an only child who isn’t particularly close to her parents. When Bernie’s first letter arrives, it offers a connection she desperately needs.
“It’s like a lifeline,” Willis said. “It’s like this moment in her life where finally someone is reaching out and someone that she can really connect to. And I think that becomes the most important connection in her life. So chosen family is exactly the way that you would put it.”
Raptis added that the play also examines acceptance, particularly when Mags struggles with her son’s sexuality. Interestingly, Bernie, who is otherwise the more conservative of the two women, becomes the voice encouraging her friend to accept her gay son.
“There’s also a lesson on acceptance and accepting someone who may not be of the lifestyle you would like for them to be,” Raptis explained.
The conversation reminded me of Raptis’s earlier appearance in Next Fall, another production that explored family relationships, sexuality, and the sometimes complicated journey toward understanding.
For Raptis, the message is simple: genuine friendship requires room for disagreement, growth, and forgiveness.
“You can have major disagreements with a really good friend and come out of it on the other side still as good of friends as ever before, even better, because now you understand each other a little more,” she said.
Our conversation also took a nostalgic turn when Willis and I mentioned a shared connection to James Erickson, an influential theater mentor from our earlier years. I asked Willis what she remembered most about working with him.
She recalled being cast in Breakfast with Santa [at Meier and Frank area stores] and the extraordinary confidence Erickson inspired in young performers.
“When he said you were talented, you believed him,” Willis remembered. “I think that was the first time that I was ever fully convinced that I had talent.”
She became emotional describing his influence, explaining that she still thinks about him, especially before stepping onto a stage.
“I think he did that for a lot of people,” she said. “There was some magic to that man, for sure.”
As our conversation drew to a close, I asked both women what they would write in a letter to their younger selves.
Raptis didn’t miss a beat.
“Boys are not that important,” she declared. “Focus on yourself, be more confident in yourself, and boys are not that important.”
Willis laughed and admitted she was tempted to steal that advice. But she offered another message, one particularly familiar to the LGBTQ+ community.
“It gets better.”
Despite the confidence she now projects as an entertainer, Willis admitted that she struggled with self-esteem when she was younger.
“I’d want to really console myself and tell myself, hey, it’s gonna get better, you just got to hold on.”
And perhaps that’s the greatest lesson of Pen Pals. Friendships evolve. People change. Sometimes years pass without contact. But when the love is genuine, the connection remains.
“As long as you truly have love for each other, the friendship doesn’t change,” Willis reflected. “It’s always this kind of golden thread, if you will. It’s this connection that lasts.”
After spending time with Raptis and Willis, I couldn’t help thinking about the friends who have passed through my own life, those who stayed, those who drifted away, and those who can still make me laugh after years of silence. We may live in a world of instant messages, emojis, and disappearing texts, but there’s something wonderfully reassuring about a friendship that can survive an ocean, decades of change, and the occasional disagreement.
And while Bernie and Mags may never have seen the sparkle in each other’s eyes, audiences will certainly see it in the performances of these two talented women.
Just don’t expect any Jägermeister-fueled musical numbers. At least, not officially.
Pen Pals plays November 19 – December 6, 2026, Presented by triangle productions! in Portland. Click HERE for Tix.
