David Garelik & Malika Samuel to Star in BITE ME World Premiere at WP Theater

WP Theater and Colt Coeur have revealed that David Garelik (Long Day’s Journey Into Night at the Geffen; The Good Muslim) and Malika Samuel(Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; WP’s Our Dear Dead Drug Lord) will star in the world premiere of BITE ME by award-winning playwright Eliana Pipes (Dream Hou$e, Hoops), directed by Rebecca Martínez (The Comedy of Errors, WP’s Sancocho). BITE ME will begin performances at WP Theater (2162 Broadway at 76th St.) on September 23, ahead of an official opening night of Thursday, October 5. The limited engagement runs through October 22. Tickets are on sale now at wptheater.org.

Nathan is ditching class when he stumbles on Melody crying in a storage closet - he’s a white boy with family money and dangerous habits, she’s the lone Black girl on campus, excelling academically and grappling with feelings of isolation. They form an unexpected bond and it’s not long before the heat between them boils over. Bite Me explores the drama (and trauma) of trying to fit in at high school, and the unfinished business waiting for them at their reunion a decade later. This captivating dark comedy dares to explore the raw undercurrents of youth, and the unspoken truths that bind us.

 

Joining Martinez on the BITE ME creative team are scenic designer Chika Shimizu; costume designer Sarita Fellows; lighting designer Lucrecia Briceno; and sound designer Tosin Olufolabi. The stage manager is Caren Celine Morris. Casting by Kelly Gillespie, C.S.A.

 

DAVID GARELIK

(Nathan). Select TV/Film: “Power Book 2: Ghost” (STARZ), “FBI” (CBS), “FBI: MOST WANTED” (CBS), “The Blacklist” (CBS), “Dear White People” (Netflix), “MacGyver” (CBS), “Madam Secretary” (CBS), Trey Edward Shults’ Waves (A24), Peter Berg’s Mile 22 (STX),  Zoey Cassavetes’ Junior(Blackpill), and a lead role in Daniel Byers’ upcoming film, Paradise.  Theater: Long Day’s Journey Into Night (The Geffen), The Good Muslim (Ensemble Studio Theater). @DavidGarelik

 

Malika Samuel

(Melody) Broadway: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (OBC), The Music Man. NY Theater: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Double Feature Plays), Bernarda’s Daughters (TNG/TNBT and TNG/Audible Theater), Crumbs from the Table of Joy (Keen), Our Dear Dead Drug Lord (WP). TV: “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “EVIL,” “Orange Is the New Black,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Chicago P.D.,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “The Good Wife,” “Person of Interest,” “The Big C.” Hosting: Nick Studio 10, 2013 Kids’ Choice Awards (Pre-Show), Kidz Bop, Kidz Star USA. Film: Holiday Rush, Submission, Central Park, Hello Apartment, Kilimanjaro. Directing: in lucem: a devised piece (Tisch Drama Stages), The Wolves, Marie Antoinette and the Magical Negroes, The House of Bernarda Alba (NYU MSNR), Bloom Bloom Pow (A.R.T/NY Theaters, movement direction). Malika is an interdisciplinary storyteller and teaching artist, presently faculty at her alma mater, NYU Tisch. Additionally, she applies her creative experiences and professional skills toward developing curricular interventions across the medical/healthcare education/practice continuum.

 

Eliana Pipes

(Playwright) is a writer, filmmaker and actor based in her hometown of Los Angeles. Her plays include Dream Hou$e (world premiere co-production Alliance Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, and Baltimore Center Stage, published by Concord Samuel French); Hoops (world premiere commission Milwaukee Chamber Theater); and Bite Me. She holds commissions from Two River Theater and South Coast Repertory. Her work has been developed or presented at the New York Theatre Workshop Dartmouth Residency, Playwright's Realm Scratchpad Series, South Coast Repertory Pacific Playwright’s Festival, NNPN National New Play Showcase, Old Globe Powers New Voices Festival, Fire This Time Festival, and Drama League DirectorFest. Her writing awards include the Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship, Alliance Kendeda Prize, Leah Ryan Prize, KCACTF Harold and Mimi Steinberg Award, National Latine Playwrights Award, and Dr. Floyd Gaffney Award. As a filmmaker, she's been awarded the Academy Gold Fellowship for Women through AMPAS, the WAVE Grant and Outfest x Colin Higgins Youth Filmmaker Grant. She was selected for the Orchard Project's Episodic Lab for her pilot THE YOUNG LORDS. BA English Columbia University, MFA Playwriting Boston University. www.elianapipes.com.

 

REBECCA MARTÍNEZ

(Director) is a multidisciplinary director, the Cohort Collaborations Director for One Nation/One Project, and the former BOLD Associate Artistic Director at WP Theater. Recent projects include a musical adaptation of The Comedy of Errors (The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit), Sancocho (WP Theater), Living and Breathing (Two River), Los Complicados (EST Marathon), Randy’s Dandy Coaster Castle (Egg & Spoon Collective), Songs About Trains (Working Theater and Radical Evolution), and Somewhere Over the Border (Syracuse Stage and Geva Theatre). Rebecca has developed new work with The Public Theater, Amas Musical Theater, the O’Neill, Latinx Playwrights Circle, the Sol Project, NAMT, INTAR, Working Theater, and The Playwrights Realm, among others. Affiliations: Sojourn Theatre Ensemble, 2021 TCG Rising Leaders of Color; Sol Project Collective, Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, INTAR’s Unit52, New Georges Affiliated Artist, WP Theater Directors Lab, Drama League Directing Fellow, member of SDC. Awards: Colorado Henry Award for Directing; four Portland, Oregon Drammy Awards; Lilla Jewel Award for Women Artists. Rebecca is originally from Colorado with deep ancestral roots in the Southwest. rebeccamartinez.org

 

Colt Coeur

(Adrienne Campbell-Holt, Artistic Director) is a NYC-based theater company founded in 2010. Our original, story-driven, visceral theater pulls you close and doesn’t let go. Our community of artists nurtures and invests in diverse perspectives to produce work that is design-forward while also being highly accessible. We strive to create great happenings in small rooms, theater as close as a whisper in your ear or a stranger’s hand brushing yours. Intimacy is our way in. We embrace the infinite theatrical potential of intimate live performance. We contemplate questions that inspire us and devise theater pieces which respond to and engage with the world in which we live. We address the ambivalence, terror and exhilaration of our age on the scale of person-to-person through theater that utilizes a simplicity of means to achieve richness of expression. Half of our world premieres have been created from scratch– in a process inspired by the UK’s Joint Stock theatre. 
The 22-member ensemble of actors, directors, playwrights and designers nurtures the next generation of theater artists through the development and production of new plays and by providing arts education and mentorship to students from under-resourced NYC public schools. Over 13 years, Colt Coeur has produced 15 world premieres, 1 east coast premiere; developed 52 plays; and provided free arts intensives for over 200 students. All 16 of Colt Coeur’s premieres explored themes of resonance to our times and garnered rave reviews, award recognition, and future productions. Highlights include sold-out premiere runs of DRY LAND by Ruby Rae Spiegel and EUREKA DAY by Jonathan Spector.  Recent world premieres have included HATEF**K by Rehana Lew Mirza (co-pro with WP) and DODI & DIANA by Kareem Fahmy.

 

WP THEATER

(Lisa McNulty, Producing Artistic Director; Michael Sag, Managing Director) now in its 46th Season, is the nation’s oldest and largest theater company dedicated to developing, producing and promoting the work of Women+ at every stage in their careers. For over four decades, we have served as leaders at the forefront of a global movement toward gender parity, and the example we set and the artists we have fostered have grown into a robust and thriving community of artists in theater and beyond. WP Theater received a 2018 Lucille Lortel Award, a 2019 Obie Award, and a 2020 Drama Desk Award, all for Outstanding Body of Work, recognizing WP’s unique place and vital work in the theatrical landscape. WP empowers Women+ of all kinds to reach their full potential and, in doing so, challenges preconceptions about the kinds of plays women write and the stories they tell. As the premiere launching pad for some of the most influential Women+ theater artists today, our work has had a significant impact on the field at large. Nearly every prolific female theater artist has been through our doors, including 2021 Pulitzer Prize Winner Katori Hall, 2019 Tony Winner for Best Direction of a Musical, Rachel Chavkin, 2018 Tony Winner for Best Direction of a Play, Rebecca Taichman, 2013 Tony Winner for Best Direction of a Play, Pam MacKinnon, 2013 Tony Winner for Best Direction of a Musical, Diane Paulus, 2018 Pulitzer Prize Winner Martyna Majok, and two-time Pulitzer Prize Winner Lynn Nottage. These powerful women found an artistic home at WP and are a testament to our role as a driving cultural force.