Or, should I say, “almost finds a home.” I am sad to report that this production fell victim to the coronavirus pandemic, becoming one of the many, many cancellations that occurred in theatre worldwide. I’m grateful to my director, Catherine Hume, and cast for all their time and preparation (Debra Grosman as Toni, Selene Lopez Reyes as Chloe, and Jasmine Huang as The Butterfly). I wish I could have seen you perform!
It was a busy spring. It was so busy that I never spent enough time in Falmouth to plant our vegetable garden. Aargh! But I learned a couple of things as a result. First, I learned that fennel, if left to go to seed (as I’d allowed it to do the previous summer), spreads prolifically. When we got down for an overnight Memorial Day weekend, I found myself gazing out on a sea of lacy, young fennel plants blanketing the spot in the yard where my garden used to be.
There was no time to weed that day, so the fennel kept growing, and by July some of it was three or four feet tall. While other weeds had joined this “garden party,” it was still mostly fennel. Sigh. I tried to make the best of it, trimming some soft fennel tops now and then for the salad, but mostly I just grumbled.
Then, our good friends the Fletchers came for a weekend. They commiserated with me about the lost garden season (having a teenage son who is about the same age as our daughter, they understand the pace and complexity of life right now). Then, as we gazed out on the fennel forest, we saw the butterfly. It was mostly black, with some striking white and blue spots along its wing edges. There was also a dramatic orange spot with a black center at the base of each wing; they looked like crazy, cartoon eyes. The butterfly was very drawn to the fennel.
Stephanie snapped some photos (you can see one of them below) and began to do some research, which led to the second thing this experience taught me. As we sipped wine in the back yard that evening, she showed us her pictures and announced that it was a female Eastern Black Swallowtail (the females have blue spots, males yellow), and that fennel is one of the few plants upon which this butterfly lays its eggs.
How cool, right? The vegetable garden had become a butterfly garden. How cool.
Still, at some point weeds are weeds. Early the next morning I yanked them. When everyone else awoke to find the fennel gone, there was a mild insurrection. It was good-humored, but there was real passion underneath it. I could sense that. Hmm, I thought. Might there be a short play in this?
I wrote Lost Season a few days later. It’s a poignant play (if I do say so myself) about a grieving grandmother and granddaughter who begin to find a way through their grief with the help of a butterfly, honest communication, and a treasured family recipe that inherits a new secret ingredient. After a well-received cold read at Playwrights Platform early this fall, I began submitting the play, and Alumnae Theatre in Toronto said yes. Their annual New Ideas Festival, which takes place in March 2020, will be my first opportunity to see Lost Season on its feet. I’ll spend a few days with them developing and revising the play before the weekend performance.
I guess things happen for a reason. But if you think I’m planting fennel in the spring, think again. That stuff spreads like crazy.
You can read, recommend, and request rights to produce Lost Season and my other plays at New Play Exchange.
