Listen Up Amateur Sleuths!

 

Saratoga Springs, NY (March 12, 2009) – Television writer and producer Matt Witten will engage the audience in an interactive "whodunit" thriller when he appears as the guest of honor at our Saratoga Springs Summer Benefit, to be held at the Yaddo Mansion on June 19th.

Mr. Witten – whose credits include House, CSI: Miami, Law & Order, Medium, Women's Murder Club, JAG, Supernatural, and Judging Amy – will offer those attending the fundraising event a sneak peak at a work-in-progress, a new internet series he is developing called Five Minute Mystery in which viewers will be challenged to solve a crime. For the Saratoga Springs audience, he will read a Five Minute Mystery script and ask the crowd to identify the villain. Mr. Witten also is the author of a number of mystery novels starring an amateur sleuth named Jacob Burns and set in Saratoga Springs: The Killing Bee, Breakfast at Madeline's, Grand Delusion, and Strange Bedfellows. His published stage plays include The Deal, Washington Square Moves, and The Ties That Bind. He lived and worked in Saratoga Springs for several years after first visiting the city as a guest artist at Yaddo in the late 1980s. Mr. Witten and his family now live in California and own a home in Lake Luzerne.

Thanks to the generosity of the Capital Region community and the hard work of the organizing committees, the event's expenses are traditionally kept to a minimum, allowing more than 90 percent of the benefit proceeds to go directly to Yaddo's artists' residency program. The 2009 Committee chairs are Beth Alexander, Claudia Olsen, and Anne Palamountain.

A special feature of this year's fundraiser will be a silent auction, open to everyone in attendance and offering an exceptional slate of items for bid.

The program begins at 8 p.m. and will be followed by a party. Silent auction bids will be accepted prior to the program and up until 10 p.m. Individual reservations are $150 (Patron), $175 (Special Patron), and $200 (Honorary Patron). Sponsorships start at $600 and include an invitation to a pre-event cocktail reception in a private area of the Yaddo Mansion. To purchase reservations online now, click here for a link to a secure page. For additional information, contact Lynn Farenell (lfarenell@yaddo.org or 518.584.0746).