Linda Manning's BITE THE APPLE to Make Off-Broadway Debut in March

On March 10, 2022, Linda Manning's play, BITE THE APPLE, will make its Off-Broadway debut in the West Village at the 224 Waverly Place Theater. The play explores the intersection of trauma, desire, and female sexuality and how trauma continues to disrupt a woman's life long after it happens - all through the conduit of fairytales.

In this updated retelling, a modern-day Cinderella (Diana Henry) - in the middle of a full blown mid-life crisis - is thrust into the tales of Red Riding Hood (Gaia Visnar), Snow White (NIA RAGINI), and Rapunzel (Linda Manning), exposing their emotionally treacherous stories, unearthing the past she has tried to forget, and discovering the possibility of a new story of her own making.

BITE THE APPLE dives deeply into the white hot power that our past experiences have to define us, and the tremendous stamina of the human heart to keep alive our true selves in the most fantastically difficult and surprising circumstances. The play represents an often ignored, marginalized, and at times vilified group in our culture - women who are survivors of trauma and have experience and knowledge to offer. The play asks the profound questions: where did you come from, what happened to you, and what do you want to do now?

In its Off-Broadway debut, the play features musical composition by JONO HILL ("Aint Gonna Die Tonight" with Macklemore); costumes by ADANNE SPENCER-JOHNSON (Purchase Repertory Theatre); lighting design by NICHOLAS HOUFEK (Claire Chase's Density Project); and dramaturgy by DREW PISARRA (The Strange Case of Nick M.). Linda Manning (True Stories with Jon Cryer) wrote and directed.

MANNING also consulted long-time collaborator DEBORAH L. JENSEN (Steven Spielberg's West Side Story) on visual motifs for the show. To mirror BITE THE APPLE's fantastical and fast-moving story, JENSEN designed a visual "prelude" onstage when the audience arrives, immediately inviting them into the world of the play. JENSEN designed an invented piece of Victoriana: a rotating carousel lantern of silhouetted, paper images that seeks to arouse memories and play on our assumptions of well-known fairytales. SUZANNE HOCKSTEIN serves as the installation artist, bringing JENSEN's design to life.

Shares writer and director MANNING, "We need live theater more than ever after this long period of isolation and difficulty, and we particularly need stories about overcoming adversity. We want the audience to feel recognized on every level, in their guts, their minds, their hearts, and to feel elevated and invigorated by the struggles and hard-won triumphs of the characters. We need to experience the magic that is only possible when we sit in a room together and witness."

Explains Executive Director of Cafe Royal Cultural Foundation CHRISTOPHER DEPUTATO, BITE THE APPLE is "quite a clever concept equating the plight of female characters of well-known fairytales to the struggles many women face today in our modern society."

BITE THE APPLE will play 224 Waverly Place Theater from March 10 to March 13, with various showtimes available - 8pm on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with added matinees at 3pm on Saturday and Sunday. The show will stream Saturday evening's performance, 8pm (ET).

In-person tickets are available for purchase at bitetheappleplay.com.

Tickets to view the livestream of the Saturday evening performance are also available for purchase at bitetheappleplay.com.

BITE THE APPLE was first conceived at a workshop at The Directors Company in NYC in 2011. It was then produced as part of the New York Int'l Fringe Festival in 2012. After an extensive re-write, a staged reading was produced at TheaterLab NYC in 2016. This production is now made possible by a generous grant from Cafe Royal Cultural Foundation.

Content warning: sexually explicit language, not appropriate for children under 14.

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