The Playwrights Database
JOHN J RONAN
(1944 - )Nationality: USA
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John J. Ronan is a playwright, poet, movie/TV producer, and journalist. His play, The Yeats Game (aka Sex and the Dead) was produced to praise in Boston and off-off in New York. "&while mortality looms over the story, the production boils with life. The script is fraught with wordplay and texture, and it pulls the veil off the couples and their lives with just the right pacing and panache." Kilian Melloy - Edge. A one-act, The Early Bird Special, was a finalist in both the Tennessee Williams and Strawberry Festivals and a winner in the Fire House New Works Festival. It has had productions in New York and Newburyport, MA, and will appear at the Rogers Street Theatre, Gloucester, MA, in 2019. A new meta-comedy, Illusion 101, will be produced in 2019. Mr. Ronan has received national honors for his poetry and is a former NEA Fellow, Ucross Fellow, Bread Loaf Scholar, and Poet Laureate in Gloucester, MA, where his cable program, The Writer's Block with John Ronan, will celebrate its 30th year in the 2019-20 season. Poems have appeared in Three Penny Review, New England Review, Southern Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, Folio, and many other publications. His book, Marrowbone Lane, was named a Highly Recommended selection by the Boston Authors Club. A new book appeared in 2017: Taking the Train of Singularity South from Midtown. Media productions have won a Telly, an Aurora Gold, and a First for Education Programming from the NECTA, as well as other awards, and have been aired on many PBS outlets.
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below is a list of John J Ronan's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
Apple Trap, The: An Allegory on Greed Early Bird Special, The Illusion 101 Sex and the Dead (aka The Yeats Game)Apple Trap, The: An Allegory on Greed
Synopsis:
The Apple Trap: An Allegory on Greed is a five-actor, eight-character comedy in two acts. The play follows a young, innocent couple as they visit a large - very large - museum that contains all human history. The museum is guarded by the Himself, a heartless lecher who is perhaps Satan, perhaps Donald Trump. As the couple visit, they reveal their wish to escape the stress of modern life, admiring an exhibit of an opposite pair who inhabit an ancient bog. In their turn, Bogman and Bogwoman, more lively than expected, are dissatisfied with pre-historic life and would like to escape to the cultural glories of the 21st century - lipstick, power tools, shoes. Both couples get their wish! They exchange places, deceiving Himself in the process. He is not amused. The play and its complications echo Shaw: "There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it."
Notes:
This ensemble comedy is about greed and over-reach - and American politics. The problem of wanting everything, now! Greed is embodied by HIMSELF, Trump/Satan. The two acts are set in a Washington, D.C. museum where selfishness leads two couples to HIMSELF - and comeuppance - in the vaults of the institution, exploring similarities between common and criminal greed on the way.
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Genre:
Dramatic Comedy
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 2 Other: -
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Top of PageEarly Bird Special, The
Synopsis:
In The Early Bird Special, the old folks are getting on: forgetful, achy. What better way to fight nagging age than to celebrate a wedding anniversary with the two grown 'kids' and their spouses. A good dinner, wine, a little cake. The seniors don't mention dementia, don't mention cancer. Or the fact that neither intends to suffer through a long, drawn-out illness. The children, riding home, wrapped tightly in their own problems and egos, take a while to focus on the dinner party. How mother seemed pain-ridden, weak. How dad was more than forgetful. How the off-year celebration seemed odd, nothing silver or gold about it - an occasion that wasn't really an occasion. It takes a longer while to realize they had attended a going away party, a farewell, a send-off.
Notes:
The Early Bird Special was a finalist in the Tennessee Williams one-act festival, the Strawberry Festival, and a winner in the Firehouse New Works Festival.
1st Produced:
Strawberry Festival - St. Clements, NYC
2016
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Genre:
Drama
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageIllusion 101
Synopsis:
Illusion 101 is a meta-theater ensemble comedy on the creation of illusion through stage tricks. This includes the 'fourth wall' concept, which a professor tries to explain to a slow student. Her explanation creates a comic play within the play - if murder can be considered funny. The audience becomes unsure which of the two plays is 'real'. Later, the 'fourth wall' is annihilated and the audience invited to be part of a third version of the play - which ends the narrative fantasy of the first two. Illusion, despite the stark explanation of the stagecraft that creates it, is destroyed. Or is it?
Notes:
The running time on Illusion 101 is about 25 minutes; it is appropriate for actual classroom use in theater courses.
1st Produced:
Readings only
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Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageSex and the Dead (aka The Yeats Game)
Synopsis:
Sex and the Dead is a four-character ensemble comedy about the pre-geezer years. At a cabin retreat, two couples drink and play a sex-therapy board game. They wind up in bed, of course, switched, one revealing a secret, just blossoming affair, the other revealing a secret, now fading affair. Morning-after tensions lead to confession, and (perhaps) destroyed marriages. Back in the bedrooms, however, we are surprised to see marital matching - and a recognition that they are all too old, too mature for sex romps. All is reform and (perhaps) reluctant morality.
Notes:
Sex and the Dead was inspired by the famous Yeats line: "I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood - sex and the dead."
1st Produced:
Blackburn Theater, Gloucester, MA
2007
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Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
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