The Telling Company's A BITTER PILL Set for NYC's Venus/Adonis Theater Festival

On Tuesday, January 5 -10, 2016, as part of the Venus/Adonis Theater Festival at The Hudson Guild Theatre (441 W. 26th Street), The Telling Company (TTC) will present A BITTER PILL by Gayle Damiano Waxenberg. Artistic Director Daniel Neiden will direct. Tickets are $23 and can be purchased by visiting TheTellingCompany.org.

A BITTER PILL portrays an odyssey through a parade of doctors, prescriptions, devastating side-effects, and the gradual fraying of an American family. Following one child's plight, A BITTER PILL is a topical and timely new play that examines the victimization and over-medication of American youth and the partnership between the medical community and Big Pharma.

Playwright Waxenberg shared her inspiration, "Raising children in the nineties and 2000s, I witnessed too many children being labeled like cans, and medicated for one frightening diagnosis after another. First it was ADD, then bipolar disorder and being on the spectrum, followed by personality disorders - all publicized like fashion trends. When it landed within my orbit of family and friends, I had to do something. Even now, every day there are new headlines revealing Big Pharma's pipeline of fabricated disorders and the misguided dispensation of drugs, including exposes of facts hidden from the FDA."

The cast comprises Whitney Biancur (UK and NYC: A Midsummer Night's Dream), Steven Cambria (Film: The Prenup), Marissa Crisafulli (Film: Sunday), Brandon Duncan (NYC: Rapunzarella White), Leo Giannopoulos (NYC: Three Pillows), Alesandra Nahodil (Regional: Still Life Goes On), Alexander Nifong (TV: "Oh, You Pretty Things") and Nicole O'Brien. Rachel A. Kaufman serves as Musical Director, and Rebecca Kane as Stage Manager.

Director Daniel Neiden said, "It took an inordinate amount of determination for Gayle to pour out this story and craft such a beautiful play that affects each one of us. We have become a medicated society that continues to run the risks of sometimes fatal side-effects from opportunistic, for-profit diagnoses, which have been the basis of Big-Pharma protocol and financial gains."