By Jackie Demaline
Enquirer staff writer

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, playwright John Yearley was on a subway approaching the Fulton Street station when he heard a report of a possible fire at the World Trade Center.

When he came out of the subway into the bright and sunny day, Yearley looked up and saw black smoke and orange flames.

What happened over the next minutes, hours and days inspired Leap, a dark comedy about loss that is this season's recipient of a Playhouse in the Park new play award. The world premiere will be Feb. 12-March 13 in the Shelterhouse.

Yearley has won several play-writing awards and recently completed a year as playwright-in-residence at Manhattan's Abingdon Theatre Company.

The play is about a nameless man whose marriage has collapsed and he is close to the breaking point when he comes out of a subway and sees what Yearley saw that day. He pitches his wallet into the debris, pretends to be suffering amnesia and gets caught up in the freakish life of a family more desperate than he is.

Yearley finished Leap's first draft on Sept. 11, 2002 and expected the 9/11 setting to make the comedy - "very personal and idiosyncratic and strange" - a hard sell. "I remember thinking to myself, 'here's one for the drawer.' "

Instead there's been considerable interest in it, he says, with a second production in Florida already on the calendar.

For reservations and information call the Playhouse at 421-3888.

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com