By José Cruz González
Directed by Nat Miller
Performances:
Oscar G. Brockett Theatre
November 30 & December 1 @ 7:30 PM
December 2 @ 2:00 PM
Free Admission
Lily Family Day
Sunday, December 2
1:00 - 1:45 p.m.
Winship Drama Building, Room 1.134
We invite you and your family to experience a dramatic day of family fun! Family Day includes a pre-performance workshop before seeing Lily Plants a Garden. Recommended for families with children ages 8-11. Family Day is free but space is limited. Register by sending your name, number of attendees (including ages of children), and contact information to Nat Miller at writenatmiller@hotmail.com. Registration ends on Friday, November 30 at Noon or as soon as we have reached maximum capacity.
Media and Resources:
- Cast List
- Director Information
- Playwright Information
- Synopsis
- Supplemental Materials
- Press and Reviews
Play Synopsis: Lily Plants a Garden is an inspiring and timely allegory about a child who brings hope to troubled times. A Young Girl runs into an empty building with an old red wagon, frightened by "kabooms" heard far away and shadowy figures on the wall. She finds a doll and begins to dramatize a fantasy about her life. This is her story:
Long ago, Zobeings (plant people who live by day) and Wulumans (animal people who live by night) used to grow gardens together, but they got into an argument that led to the Great Endless Unforgotten War. Because Lily is a Zoebeing, the other Wuluman people do not want the family there. The horror of their situation causes them to lose their home. Papa starts to drink too much wulujuice, and he turns into a balloon and floats away. Lily and her mother are forced to leave their homeland, and live in a hard cold world of rubble. Lily's mother begins to shrink, leaving Lily all alone. Lily finds her own way to deal with the hatred by planting a garden in a red wagon. It is the first garden to be seen in centuries, where broken toys grow into beautiful plants and exotic friends such as a ladybug, a rose, and a mysterious Zobeing Shadow who looking for her shadow. Lily and her new friends help make the garden grow and eventually return Mama to her normal size and find Lily's father (who is still a balloon). He tells her, "Lily, from up here I can see your garden. It shouldn't exist, but it does. You took your kaboom and turned it into something beautiful." Through her imagination, beautiful garden, and new friends, the Young Girl is able to find hope during troubling times.
Director's Notes:
Lily Plants a Garden is a play about discrimination, and what happens when people are persecuted for being different. It explores how global conflict affects communities, which affects families, which affects the individual. Despite these ominous themes, it is also an allegory about hope and how children find joy in all situations. Lily represents any child who has been a victim of genocide, war, violence, harassment, and bullying. She is any child that is different.
I chose the play because I wanted to use it as a springboard to talk to students about issues of conflict. I wanted to explore teaching students that the roots of the conflict that happens between two countries at war is not that different than the conflicts that happen on the playground. By exploring the themes of the play, it is my hope that the small actions students take to get along with each other in their everyday encounters will echo much louder than they can imagine.
Playwright: José Cruz González
Jose Cruz Gonzalez served as project director of South Coast Repertory's Hispanic Playwrights Project for 11 seasons. His plays include Lily Plants a Garden, The Red Forest, September Shoes, Always Running, Mariachi Quixote, Cousin Bell Bottoms, Two Donuts, Salt & Pepper, The Highest Heaven, Manzi (The Adventures of Young Cesar Chavez), The Magic Rainforest (An Amazon Adventure), Marisol's Christmas, La Posada, Harvest Moon, Calabasas Street, Spirit Dancing and Odysseus Cruz. His Mariachi Quixote was part of the A.S.K's Common Ground Festival (Los Angeles). He has written for PAZ, a new series produced by Discovery Kids for the Ready Set Learn! block on The Learning Channel. Gonzalez was a recipient of a 1997 NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, and in 1985 he was a National Endowment for the Arts Director Fellow. He is a graduate of the University of California, Irvine, where he received his MFA in directing. He teaches theatre at California State University at Los Angeles. Gonzalez is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America, Inc., a national board member of ASSITEJ/USA and an associate artist with Cornerstone Theater Company.
Director: Nat Miller
Nat Miller is a third year M.F.A. Drama and Theatre For Youth student from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Prior to beginning graduate school at UT, he taught English and Theater at a high school in Burlington, WI for two years. Nat has also been an actor/teacher for First Stage Children's Theater in Milwaukee. His most current work was devising an original musical with teenagers for Milwaukee's Next Act Theater. Nat received his B.F.A. in Theater from SMU in Dallas, and his teaching certification at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. His past directing experience includes the UT premiere of The Wrestling Season under the supervision of the playwright, Laurie Brooks. Directing Lily Plants a Garden and creating curriculum that deals with the social issues in the play is his thesis.
Production Guide : developed to bring the audience into the world of the play and set up the story
Resource Guide : supplementary material that specifically address issues of children in/of war and genocide.
Although both of these guides are designed for teachers to share with their classes, the Director and Outreach Coordinator wanted to make these available to everyone. Please enjoy.
- Papa: Jeremy Dozier
- Mama: Nitra Gutierrez
- Lily: Trang Bui
- Young Girl: Stevi Baston
- Miss Beatrice: Amanda Cayo
- Rosy: Anna Garrett
- Wuluman Soldier: Nicole Barnes
- Zoebeing Soldier: John Harmon
- Shadow: Annabel Stephan
