Impact Theatre Presents Steve Yockey's ANIMAL GAMES, Opens 11/7

Impact Theatre continues its take-no-prisoners 2009-10 14th season with the co-world premiere of Large Animal Games, the newest work by Steve Yockey. Large Animal Games will simultaneously debut in a separate production at Dad's Garage in Atlanta.

Impact introduced Atlanta-based playwright Steve Yockey to the Bay Area with his absurdist comedy Cartoon (named one of the top ten plays of the year by the East Bay Express) and the experimental dreamscape Sleepy. He has since made splashes with his plays Octopus and Skin at major local companies, and this year he's the playwright-in-residence at Marin Theatre Company. He now returns to Impact with Large Animal Games, an incisive look at relationships, big-game hunting, and intimate apparel, all seen through Steve's delightfully cockeyed lens.

"I'm really excited to have Steve back at La Val's," Hillman says. "We're proud to have been the company that first brought him to the Bay Area, and we're thrilled to debut a new play of his."

In Large Animal Games, characters roam emotional savannahs, hunting elusive connections. Rose went off to Spain on her own and has returned impetuously with Miguel after experiencing a bullfight with him. Nicole dreams herself the predator but finds herself the prey. Valerie's African safari vacation is not at all what she expected. Stan and his fiancée, Alicia, discover they still have major things to learn about each other. Connecting all of them is Jimmy, maker and purveyor of handcrafted intimate apparel, supplier of each character's perfect skin.

Impact's production, directed by Melissa Hillman, stars a cast of audience favorites including Marissa Keltie, Cindy Im, Jai Sahai, Elissa Dunn, and Timothy Redmond, as well as the Impact debut of Roy Landaverde and Leontyne Mbele-Mbong. The show starts November 5 and opens November 7.

Extremely affordable season subscriptions are still available for the final three shows of the 2009-10 season. For only $15 per play, subscribers can decide with 24 hours' notice which performance they want to see, and still have the best seats in the house waiting for them. With dozens of performances selling out in 2008-09, subscribers got in every time while others had to be turned away. This year, as a special thank-you, each subscriber will receive one of Impact's brand-new pint glasses. Subscriptions are available at impacttheatre.com/subscribe.

More information is available at http://impacttheatre.com

ABOUT IMPACT THEATRE
Since 1996 Impact Theatre has spoken to a new generation of theatregoers and enthusiasts alike who want to see something fresh and bold on stage. Impact's audience ranges from students to professionals to seniors, all of whom share a taste for exciting, unpretentious theatre that doesn't conform to stale assumptions of what constitutes high culture. Impact's primary mission is to directly contribute to the future of American theatre through focusing on new plays by emerging playwrights. Impact has produced 18 full-length world premieres, including 13 by local playwrights, as well as dozens of world-premiere ten-minute plays by burgeoning writers nationwide in the Impact Briefs series. Impact also prides itself on its fast-paced, vital, contemporary spins on classic drama. Impact shows compel, provoke, and inspire, at prices everyone can afford. And nowhere else in the Bay Area can you eat pizza and drink beer while you're watching a play. The East Bay Express named Impact "Best Small Theatre Company" in its 2008 Best of the East Bay issue and always includes Impact shows in its year-end top-ten lists.