FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: August 10, 2004
Contact: Christa Skiles
Public Relations Director
513-345-2242, ext. 232

LEAP BY JOHN YEARLEY WILL RECEIVE WORLD PREMIERE AT CINCINNATI PLAYHOUSE IN THE PARK FEBRUARY 12-MARCH 13

(CINCINNATI) – Playwright John Yearley’s Leap will receive its world premiere production at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park as part of the theatre’s 2004-2005 season. The offbeat drama, one of personal rebirth set against the backdrop of national tragedy, will be produced in the Playhouse’s Thompson Shelterhouse Theatre beginning February 12 and continuing through March 13.

Leap is the story of a man who, faced with the collapse of his marriage, believes he has lost his identity. One morning he steps out of a New York City subway and finds himself surrounded by the chaos of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center. He throws his wallet into the debris and prepares to lose himself forever.

Fleeing from his restless soul and his troubling past, the man pretends to be suffering from amnesia. He stumbles into a diner and upon a young waitress, who believes her former fiancé has perished in the attack. She takes pity on the man and brings him back to her home. There he encounters a house filled with secrets of its own and a family paralyzed by its unsettled history.

John Yearley recently finished a year as playwright-in-residence at Abingdon Theatre Company in New York, where he received a grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation to develop Leap, a finalist for the Christopher Brian Wolk Award. Other recent honors include the Samuel French Award for A Low-Lying Fog, the John Gassner Award for Ephemera and the Panelists Choice Award at the Edward Albee Festival for Angel Baby . His play Bruno Hauptmann Kissed My Forehead was produced by Abingdon in 2002. He also has written many short plays including Hating Beckett, which debuted at the Long Wharf Theatre. Mr. Yearley is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the William Esper Studio. He has worked for New Line Cinema as a script doctor, is a MacDowell Fellow and is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Writers Guild of America East.

According to Playhouse Producing Artistic Director Edward Stern, “The common thread in our world premiere productions through all of my years here at the Playhouse is first and foremost that the play must be like nothing I’ve ever read or seen before, either in structure, content or language, and, hopefully, in all three. Leap definitely follows in that tradition.

“Certainly this is a play about identity and about trying to find out who you are at a time and place when nobody really knew who he or she was. The play starts with 9/11, but it doesn’t dwell on that. It’s a precipitating event for what happens next. We meet a totally unique family, whose members all have secrets and a need to move past those secrets. Like Hiding Behind Comets and The Dead Eye Boy, this play will have a very healthy future.”

Playwright John Yearley is thrilled the play will be receiving its world premiere in Cincinnati. “Ed Stern and the Cincinnati Playhouse have the best reputation in New York City,” he says. “Everyone loves the theatre. This is by far the biggest break of my career.”

According to Mr. Yearley, “Leap is a play about people coping with loss and how your quality of life can be determined by how you deal with loss. It’s comedic in tone although it’s also very sad.”

Leap is sponsored by Right Management Consultants. The Playhouse’s 2004-2005 Thompson Shelterhouse Theatre Season is presented by Heidelberg Distributing Company. The Season Design Sponsor is the Sheakley Group of Companies.

Tickets to Leap are available now through subscriptions to the Playhouse’s 2004-2005 season. Single tickets for the show will go on sale to the general public on August 27 and range from $33-$48, depending on day and seat location. For reservations or subscription information, call the Playhouse box office at 513/421-3888 or toll-free in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, 800/582-3208. Call 513/345-2248 for TDD accessibility.

Under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Edward Stern and Executive Director Buzz Ward, the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park is entering its 45th season as one of the nation’s leading professional regional theatres. Earlier this summer, the Playhouse was honored with the 2004 Regional Theatre Tony Award^®. One of the most coveted awards in the entertainment industry, it honors a nonprofit professional regional theatre company that has displayed a continuous level of artistic achievement contributing to the growth of theatre nationally. The season kicks off on September 7 with the most romantic of comedies, William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Playhouse artists fly to and from Cincinnati on Delta Connection Comair, the official airline of the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.

The Playhouse also is supported, in part, by the generosity of the tens of thousands of individuals and businesses that give to the Fine Arts Fund.

The Ohio Arts Council helps fund the Playhouse with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.

The Playhouse also receives funding from the City of Cincinnati.

###