“Snow Glass Apples” audio play feature – USA Today

Today, the site is premiering the first installment of Neil Gaiman’s Snow Glass Apples audio play, starring Bebe Neuwirth (Lilith from Cheers). The play, adapted from Gaiman’s 1994 short story of the same name, is a fanciful and dark tale written from the perspective of the Evil Queen — who in this version is not so evil, while Snow is not so pure. Part 2 goes up June 7.

The inspiration came to Gaiman, perhaps best known as author of comic-book series The Sandman, one day while reading a book on English folk tales and coming across Snow White. “Hold on, what kind of prince rides up and sees a dead girl in her coffin and says, ‘I must have her!’ ” he says. “I thought, ‘My God, wouldn’t it be interesting to tell a very familiar story, but from a different point of view?’ ”

Though Gaiman, 40, a Brit living near Minneapolis, acknowledges that the story may be too edgy for American radio (the tale is sexual and delves into Snow White’s dark side), he’s glad it’s on the Net for other reasons as well. “It’s there when you want it,” he says. And though he could have turned the play into a movie for a few million, it not only saved a lot of cash to do it as an audio play, but it also seemed a fitting way to tell a tale vivid enough to create mental pictures.

“The joy for me is knowing that somebody can have this strange audio experience,” he says. “They’re getting something as good as you get from radio.”

Though many Web sites are dedicated to Gaiman, his efforts right now are focused on his site for his upcoming novel, American Gods. But he does have a favorite fan site — Holycow.com/dreaming, where he says he sometimes first hears news about himself.