Bated Breath Theatre Company and RRR Productions have optioned Susan Cain鈥檚 New York Times No. 1 best-selling book Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole for the stage.
Mara Lieberman, executive artistic director of Bated Breath, will pen the stage adaptation in collaboration with Cain. A timeline for a production has yet to be announced.
The book weaves together stories of loss and resilience, the author鈥檚 personal experience, art, literature, religion, and science鈥攆rom Darwin to epigenetics鈥攖o explain why longing and loss are so deeply profound, inspirational, and transformational.
Bittersweet: The Play will follow a mother鈥檚 journey following a promise from Buddha that he can resurrect her late daughter if she can procure a mustard seed from a house not touched by grief. On the other side of time, the mother meets musician Leonard Cohen, writer Maya Angelou, scientist Charles Darwin, and others who transformed their grief into offerings that changed the course of history.
鈥凌别补诲颈苍驳 Bittersweet was a visceral experience, and I can鈥檛 think of a more visceral medium than the theatre. It just felt right in this everchanging pandemic landscape to theatricalize some of the breathtaking stories in Bittersweet that remind us that our losses can be a doorway to our resilience,鈥� says Lieberman.
"When Mara reached out to me, I was thrilled that Bittersweet impacted a brilliant theatre maker so much, and now I can鈥檛 wait to see the stories touch the hearts of theatre audiences鈥攖hrough the magic of the stage," adds Cain. 鈥淚 would love to involve my readers as we develop the play and invite them into the creative journey.鈥� To stay connected, visit .
Bated Breath Theatre Company is best known for its immersive, pandemic-friendly walking tour productions Voyeur: The Windows of Toulouse-Lautrec and Chasing Andy Warhol.
