She Eats Apples – Artists' Theater of Boston

by Stephanie K Brownell

directed by Jasmine Brooks

Rescheduled due to COVID-19

She Eats Apples is a nonlinear exploration of rape culture as seen through the eyes of four teenagers embroiled in the complexities of growing up. When sixteen-year-old Ashley realizes her first time was significantly less than perfect, Ashely is forced to navigate through the realization that sometimes the people you love and trust don’t view betrayal the same way you do. What does it mean to identify as a survivor when you are a teenager, and what are the risks if you don’t? Reality and fantasy intertwine as Ashley finds the breadcrumbs of her experience in biology lessons, hopscotch rhymes, fairytales and art history. The play asks: How can we imagine a culture of consent and healthy relationships when we are embroiled in the complex web of rape culture, when we are taught through media, casual conversation, and uncritiqued views of history that what doesn’t feel right inside our own bodies, is just normal?

She Eats Apples is the winner of the National Partners of the American Theatre Playwriting Excellence Award and runner-up for WomenWorks 2015. The play has been developed around the country including significant development through educational institutions such as Boston University MA, Queensboro College NY, Carthage College WI, Breaking Barriers at Strath Haven High School PA.

The Project

Artists’ Theater of Boston is committed to ending relationship-based, gendered, and sexual violence. We are committing to the year-long pursuit of a project in an effort to work towards this goal, and we hope you will join us in this fight.

About the Playwright

Stephanie K Brownell is a multidisciplinary creator and educator holding an MFA in Playwriting from Boston University. Stephanie was a 2018 Sewanee Writers’ Conference Tennessee Williams Scholar and is an alumn of residencies and fellowships nationwide including Ensemble Studio Theatre’s New York Theatre Intensives, the O’Neill’s Playwright Observers, Taleamor Park Residency, and Company One PlayLab. Her nonlinear exploration of gender roles, She Eats Apples, won the National Partners of the American Theatre Playwriting Excellence Award, was a runner up for UT WomenWorks, and has been developed and produced around the country. Most recently, her short play “A House of a Different Color” was produced as part of This Place/Displaced, a theatrical response to gentrification and housing inequity in Boston, and her full-length play Chop, a cooking show-style exploration of body image, health, and diet culture, was selected for showcase at the Boston Center for the Arts She Said Festival.

Stephanie is passionate about teaching adults and teens through both university programs and community education. She has eight years’ experience teaching English and writing—including a year teaching high school in Angoulême, France—and currently teaches at Grub Street, the nation’s largest nonprofit writing center. Stephanie’s creative work is magical, experimental, and intersectional. Her scholarly work focuses on discourses of oppression, resistance, and imagination in contemporary and speculative literature. Publications in fiction, poetry, and drama can be found through the Santa Ana River Review, Typishly Literary Journal, formercactus, and CW Publishing.

As a costume designer, Stephanie has collaborated with Company One, New Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Opera Theatre, American Repertory Theater, The Story Theatre Chicago, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Flat Earth Theatre, among others. She’s interested in the past and future of clothing, the fluidity of gendered performance, and collaborating on new work. Her artistic practice explores the body through a mix of painting and fiber arts.

Stephanie has worked in nonprofit and arts administration since 2008, including four years at ArtBoston, where she was Manager of BosTix. She currently works as a freelance manuscript and book marketing consultant.

Production Team

Jasmine Brooks (Director)