American Storyboard Presents The Yeats Game A Farce of Improbable Darkness

Written by John J. Ronan
Directed by Kathy Richter

February 29-March 25, 2012 (24 Performances)
Wednesdays & Thursdays at 7:30pm; Friday & Saturday at 8pm
Saturdays & Sundays at 3pm

The Producers’ Club
358 West 44th Street, NYC 10036

Tickets: $30. For tickets, visit www.smarttix.com or call 212-868-4444

Runtime: 1:30 – No Intermission

American Storyboard presents The Yeats Game, a Farce of Improbable Darkness written by John J. Ronan. Kathy Richter directs a cast of four including Toby Wherry, Susan Stout, Jennifer Silverstein and Lucius Wall. Performances for The Yeats Game will be held at The Producers’ Club, 358 West 44th Street in NYC for twenty-four performances beginning Wednesday, February 29 to Sunday, March 25, 2012.

The Yeats Game is a farce about middle-age choices and their ridiculous consequences. At a funeral, as two frisky couples contemplate a friend’s fatal, love-nest heart attack, they flash back to their own recent snowed-in weekend at a mountain cabin. There, a board game designed for age-hating Boomers leads to tangled romance as the old friends explore love, lust, marriage and mischief. Just as guilt prompts confession, and all things point to reform, maturity and reluctant virtue, the play’s close tells us that virtue is a weak motivator, immaturity has its advantages – and that the corpse is perhaps not so dead.

A comical, brainy look at the pre-geezer years, The Yeats Game was inspired by the poet’s famous line: “Only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood – sex and the dead.” The Yeats Game, which played to standing room only audiences at its run in Boston, is a booze-, Viagra-, dice-driven romp.

The Yeats Game is produced by American Storyboard. Director: Kathy Richter; Playwright: John J. Ronan; Sound Designer:Timothy Dahl; Production Stage Manager: Keri Taylor; Assistant Stage Manager: Kristin Dwyer; Publicist: Paul Siebold/Off Off PR.

The Yeats Game plays for twenty-four performances from Wednesday, February 29 to Sunday, March 25, 2012, with performances Wednesdays & Thursdays at 7:30pm, Saturdays & Sundays at 8pm, and matinee performances on Saturdays and Sundays at 3pm.

Tickets are $30 and can be purchased online at www.smarttix.com or by calling 212-868-4444. For more information, please visit www.theyeatsgame.org.

The runtime for The Yeats Game is 1:30, with no intermission.

Kathy Richter (director) is a stage actor, director, dramaturge, and producer. She has directed and performed regionally, including in productions of Sisters Rosensweig, Steel Magnolias and Sylvia (Tampa, FL) and The Diary of Anne Frank (Rhinebeck, NY). She has worked with playwrights on the development of new plays at Abingdon Theatre Company in New York, where she met playwright John Ronan and directed their first reading of The Yeats Game. Kathy has been a successful producer and director of documentary films, winning a PlanetOut/HBO Award in 2002 for Best Short Documentary. Another project was acquired by the ACLU to air as part of its Freedom Files television series in 2007. As a director, Kathy looks for plays with humor and a sound story. She enjoys working on new plays, helping playwrights to perfect their scripts. Kathy worked as a news reporter, anchor, and producer in top television markets, including Tampa, Miami, and Grand Rapids. She has run marketing and communications departments for both Fortune 500 Companies and small corporations and marketed a small company for eventual acquisition by a Berkshire Hathaway Company. Kathy studied the Practical Aesthetics technique for acting at Atlantic Acting School in New York. She holds a Master’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelor’s Degree in Radio-Television Broadcasting with a Minor in Theatre from Southern Illinois University—Carbondale.

John J. Ronan is a playwright and poet. His comedy, The Yeats Game – A Farce of Improbable Darkness, premiered at the West End Theater in Gloucester, MA, in 2007, and later had an SRO run at Boston Playwrights Theatre. He is very happy to be working with Kathy Richter on a Big Apple premiere. Speaking of which, his latest play, The Apple Trap: A Parable in Two Acts, will go into production in 2013. John has received wide recognition for his poetry. A new book, Marrowbone Lane, appeared in January 2009; in 2010 it was “Highly Recommended” by the Boston Authors Club. Ronan has appeared in scores of national magazines and reviews, including New England Review, Three Penny Review, Southern Poetry Review, The Hollins Critic, and Notre Dame Review. He is a former National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, a Ucross Fellow, and Bread Loaf Scholar. In June of 2008 he was named to a two-year term as Poet Laureate of Gloucester, MA. Other books include The Catching Self, The Curable Corpse and John J. Ronan: Greatest Hits 1975-2000. Other work was included in an anthology of prize-winning poetry, Sad Little Breathings, edited by Heather McHugh and published in 2001. John is also the producer and host of “The Writer’s Block with John Ronan,” a television program featuring writers, actors, and other artists. The series, a first prize NECTA winner in 2005, began its 22nd season in September.

American Storyboard, Inc., is a non-profit, 501c3 charitable corporation dedicated to producing documentaries, plays, and other media forms of the highest quality. American Storyboard was the producer of an important sports documentary titled Women in American Horse Racing, a finalist for a prestigious Billie Awards. A previous feature, Gloucester’s Adventure: An American Story, won national awards, including a TELLY and GOLD AURORA, and was aired on PBS outlets. Tax deductible donations may be made to American Storyboard, Inc.