People's Light/Longwood Gardens Proposal Overviews

Team: Susan Mosakowski (playwright) Marsha Ginsberg (designer)
Project Title: Finding Victoria
Location: Pierce’s Woods, Flower Garden Walk to the Rose Garden, The Rose Garden, The Topiary Garden, The Water Lily Display

Brief Description:
This piece explores the amazing transformation of the Victoria Amazonica. The odyssey of this rare plant from the wilds of the Amazon to the civilized world is not only about the journey of an exotic species—during pollination Victoria changes sex and color—it is also about the lives of those who brought her into modern existence—the horticulturist, the curator, the gardener, and a monarchy. As the audience journeys through Longwood, they will discover the details of Victoria’s passage through different storytelling methods—narrative over ear phones, voices from the rose beds, an encounter with a gardener—which will track her journey to civilization. To explore her story is to hold a mirror on our own.

Team: Russell Davis (playwright) & James Pyne (designer)
Project Title: The Evening & Morning Tiger
Location: The Children’s Garden/East Conservatory

Brief Description:
An ensemble of nine performs a story inspired by animal characters featured as fountains in the Children's Garden, three of whom—a Tortoise, a Phoenix, and a Fish—stand on separate pedestals next to which is an empty fourth pedestal. In Asian mythology these three creatures are often thought of as being from one of the corners, or directions, of the world (north, south, east). The creature on the fourth corner (west) is missing and is often thought of as a tiger. An oppressive creature called the Tiger of Darkness has usurped this fourth corner of the world, while another creature, the Evening & Morning Tiger, has been forced into exile. This theatre piece recounts the return of the Evening & Morning Tiger using elements of composed music, moving light, video projection, puppetry, original glass and Lucite pieces, a circus aerialist, and choreography involving dance and juggling.

Team: Kathryn Petersen (playwright) & Tony Straiges (designer)
Project Title: The Chrysalis Project
Location: A circus tent on the cow field

Brief Description:
17th Century naturalist and scientific illustrator Maria Sybilla Merian is the central figure of this piece. Hard at work in Surinam, she is preparing specimens for a shipment back to Amsterdam when she falls ill with malaria. Her fevered dream erupts in front of her as a circus. She watches a younger version of herself learn how to observe the natural world and probe the mysteries of metamorphosis. This piece will use two aerial artists on silks, and a stilt walker to create the natural world of Maria’s dreams.

Team: Rachel Dickstein (playwright) & Susan Zeeman Rogers (designer)
Project Title: Sylvan Wood
Location: Pierce’s Woods

Brief Description:
Sylvan Wood is a collaboratively devised theatre piece by Rachel Dickstein and Susan Zeeman Rogers that leads its audience on an experiential audio-visual walking tour through the oldest portion of Longwood Gardens, Pierce’s Wood. Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s short story Kew Gardens, Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film Wild Strawberries and with a text based on interviews with guests, staff, volunteers and the diverse communities living and working near Longwood Gardens, Sylvan Wood offers a magical and moving exploration of the gardens at its most intimate and personal. Staged like a memory book, the piece invites its audience to walk through the densely-wooded pathways, listening to an intimately layered score of original music, sound, memories and questions. As the audience listens and travels, actors who inhabit these memories, emerge from behind trees, in dense thickets, and in faraway meadows. Audience members are led to discover objects hidden in the woods, objects that act like residues of memory and experience. Through story, sound, and image, Sylvan Wood immerses us in the experience of great love and loss in the presence of nature.

Team: Kathryn Walat (playwright) & Wilson Chin (designer)
Project Title: TBD
Location: Various sites within the Conservatory

Brief Description:
This piece aims to celebrate the intersection of human and natural diversity. Based on interviews conducted with a wide range of individuals around their personal connection to the plant world, the team will craft monologues to be performed at specific locations within the Conservatory. The performances will include physical action (planting of bulbs), spectacle (a woman sitting on a chair in the middle of the shallow pool), and music (a vocal/instrumental piece.)

Team: Lisa D’Amour (playwright), Katie Pearl (playwright) & Mimi Lien (designer)
Project Title: Lost in the Meadow
Location: The Meadow and the field next to it.

Brief Description:
The audience sits on the manicured grass near the meadow. They receive headphones which allow them to hear the conversations of the pairs of people set off in the distance of the Meadow. Each pair is talking about their own small and absurd problem and they are unaware of the beauty and vastness of the natural world around them. In addition to the pairs who are talking, there are pairs of people who are building. The talkers have walked to the manicured lawn and are now among the audience. The builders have constructed a radio tower and an oversized speaker contraption. The builders struggle to connect the radio tower to the speaker and when they do, we hear the voice of the Meadow.