Ron Scott Stevens is the former chairman of the New York State Athletic (Boxing) Commission. He is also a playwright/producer. The Cutting Den is his fifth play. Other plays include Three Of Us Left, Lippe, starring Academy Award nominee William Hickey, Red, Green and Yellow (An Urban Myth) and Cherry's Patch, starring James Moody. All of Ron's plays have been staged in New York City theaters including 13th Street Repertory Theatre, Quaigh Theatre and Soho Playhouse.

"My process begins when a title finds me, finds something in me that is looking for expression. They come from everywhere and they connect, it seems, to ideas that are already active in my mind," says the playwright. "I gain inspiration from real people and I write plays that contain elements of my own experiences coupled with what I've observed, witnessed, felt, thought, researched and imagined."

Ron grew up all over New York City and North Miami, FL. He attended two high schools, first Erasmus Hall H.S. in Brooklyn followed by Forest Hills H. S. in Queens. He then enrolled at Bradley University in Peoria, IL, before transferring to Hofstra University in Hempstead, L.I., NY, earning a B.A. in English in 1969. He drove a taxi for a year in New York City before attending The John Marshall Law School in Chicago, IL for parts of two years (1970-1972) but did not graduate.

"I wanted to be a criminal lawyer at the time, that and a movement lawyer," Ron remembers. "The Civil Rights movement struck a chord in many of us during those years and I thought I could contribute. Unfortunately, I never liked to study at anyone's pace but my own and law schools aren't built for students like me. When I write I write at my own speed, during my own time about things that interest me, about things I might know a little about. Estate Planning, Wills and the Uniform Commercial Code were not subjects that interested me all that much."

Ron then turned his attention to sports and worked as a broadcaster for both Hudson Valley Television (HVTV), Kingston, NY and WDST Radio, Woodstock, NY. He also wrote a weekly column for the Woodstock Times while serving as commissioner of the Woodstock Softball League. He finally returned to New York City and immediately got involved in professional boxing. It was late 1980.

"Boxing is the sport of the underdog and I was a complete underdog at the time," he recalls. "I decided I had nothing to lose so I walked into Gleason's Gym when it was located on West 30th Street in New York City and held myself out as an announcer and as a writer. Everyday from 10 AM to early evening I hung out in Gleason's and slowly work started to come in. Over time, I became a licensed ring announcer, boxing writer, boxing magazine editor and licensed matchmaker. In 1988 I formed my own boxing promotional company, Powerhouse Enterprises, Inc. and promoted my own events at Gleason's Arena in Brooklyn. Over the next 10 years, I formed three more promotional companies and promoted and co-promoted some of the world's top boxers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi including lightweight champion Arturo Gatti, featherweight champion Kevin Kelley, light heavyweight champion Luis Del Valle, cruiserweight champion Robert Daniels, junior middleweight champion Verno Phillips, jr. welterweight champion Jake Rodriguez, jr. lightweight champion Rugulio Tuur and welterweight champion Mark Breland. I ran a show every two months but I was always undercapitalized, usually a recipe for disaster. Then, in 1998, international boxing promoter Cedric Kushner asked me to join his company, Cedric Kushner Promotions as a matchmaker/coordinator and for the next four years I worked for one of the sport's most active promoters making fights for many of the sports best, including world champions Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley, Hasim Rahman, Chris Byrd and Oleg Maskaev and top-ranked contenders such as David Tua, Jameel McCline and Danell Nicholson. Their fights were televised on Showtime and HBO and I was spending a good deal of my time in Las Vegas and Atlantic City as well as New York and getting paid for it."

Then New York's Governor's Appointments Office beckoned and on June 10, 2003 Ron was sworn in as chairman of the New York State Athletic (Boxing) Commission after being confirmed by the New York State Senate. He served until July 24, 2008. Along the way, he received the James A. Farley award from the Boxing Writers' Association of America for Honesty and Integrity in 2006 and the American Association for the Improvement of Boxing award for Official of the Year in 2007 while regulating some of the world's biggest boxing events at Madison Square Garden including Miguel Cotto versus Shane Mosley, Felix Trinidad versus Ricardo Mayorga, Vitali Klitschko versus Kirk Johnson, John Ruiz versus Andrew Golata, Wladimir Klitschko versus Calvin Brock, Samuel Peter versus Jameel McCline, Roy Jones, Jr. versus Felix Trinidad, Miguel Cotto versus Paulie Malignaggi, Wladimir Klitschko versus Sultan Ibragimov, John Ruiz versus James Toney and Evander Holyfield versus Larry Donald.

Sports and theater, theater and sports. Both have captured Ron's imagination ever since he was a boy. When he was 11-years-old, he was living in North Miami, FL and going to William Jennings Bryant Elementary School when he was selected to attend the play, Where's Charlie? starring Dick Shawn at the Coconut Grove Playhouse. "I remember being thoroughly engrossed in the play and laughing at every turn. I don't know why I was picked except to say that it seems to fit who I am and the experiences I've had," Ron recalls.

"Same for sports," he says. "I played every sport imaginable as a boy except ice hockey and at the age of 11, went with my father to the Miami Beach Auditorium to see heavyweight Cleveland Williams battle Frankie Daniels. Although I'd already seen plenty of boxing on television seeing it live changed the equation for me, as did seeing theater live around the same time. Boxing and theater were very similar for me, with the boxing ring approximating a stage and the boxers becoming the actors surrounded by the audience. When I wrote and staged my boxing play, Lippe, starring William Hickey in 1985, I produced it at the Quaigh Theater, a three-quarter round setting that resembled a boxing arena rather than the traditional proscenium. The eleven-character play lent itself to that stage and I am still very proud of that production and how fortunate I was in having William Hickey play the title role during the year he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor by the Academy Awards for his work in the film, Prizzi's Honor. I was also very fortunate to have set designer Don Jensen and a terrific supporting cast."

What is obvious is Ron's gift. He has been writing and producing plays that entertain and are thought provoking while promoting the sport of boxing before he was chosen to regulate it. The Cutting Den, his latest endeavor, is sure to draw attention. "I have a great team that will enable me to bring this play to Soho Playhouse," Ron says. "Without them, without their collaboration, the play would never have been realized. The actors, director, set designer, lighting and sound designer, graphic and production designer, stage manager, publicist, advertisers, each one of them made it possible because of their love for theater and commitment to this story. Darren Lee Cole, the Soho Playhouse proprietor, has been extremely helpful. It's my second play at Soho Playhouse. I find it very rewarding to have a play go from the page to the stage. There's nothing like it," says the playwright/producer.

Ron Scott Stevens is currently working on a new play entitled The Rifle Ministry. He expects it to go into production in 2011. After that, it's The Governor's Men, Behind Bars, Lady of Ladies . . .

Contact Ron at: ronscottstevens@yahoo.com