I got the email asking if I was interested in doing an adaptation of The Secret Garden while I was on my way to the bathroom at the airport en route to the William Inge Festival. (For the lowdown on Inge, check out our Hey Playwright recap on the podcast.)
I hadn't read The Secret Garden, hadn't seen the movies, didn't really know what it was about except that my sister SUPER LOVED it when she was a kid but she also SUPER LOVED Yentl and Educating Rita when she was a kid so her tastes were...curious (and I'm not even talking teen or tween...she was eight). Anyways, I said YES because that's the kind of person I am. Also, the ask came from Lily Raabe, artistic director of Olympia Family Theatre. I had just worked with them doing this super cool project called FULLY VAXXED and I fell in love with OFT and the people. Well, many many months later, I have read The Secret Garden. I have watched movies, I have read other theatrical adaptations. And here we are now. A week before opening.
Whatever you think you know about The Secret Garden, forget about it. Sure, this is The Secret Garden -- there's Mary, and her parents are dead, and she is sent to live in a hundred-room house, but dang, this is the kind of show I wish I had seen when I was a kid. I feel so honored OFT asked me to tell this story, and so thankful they were all in when I pitched a punk rock Latinx Mary. So if you're in the Pacific Northwest and you want to check out a "classic" that has been re-imagined to include punk music, puppets so beautiful they'll make you cry, and an oh-so-subtle spirit of VIVA MEXICO, head on over to Olympia Family Theatre and check out the show that kicks off their 22-23 season. It runs September 30 – October 16, 2022!