About the Production

Community Garden is a meditation on self-searching, sacrifice and that lovely glow you get when you feast on the fruits that grow from the graves of dead husbands.

Community Garden was the first in-person production at UT Austin since the pandemic began, produced as part of the UT New Theatre Festival.

Check out this UT Theatre & Dance Blog post about the project.

DIRECTOR’S NOTE:

Over the course of our production and development process for Community Garden, we held our breath as the world of the pandemic changed around us and nothing felt quite certain. There were times that mounting an in-person production seemed completely impossible, or at least highly unlikely.

In the moments when our site-specific garden production seemed least likely to come to fruition, I sought comfort and guidance from nature. I studied the resilient plants that find ways to grow in the unlikeliest scenarios—delicate little flowers sprouting up through cracks in concrete or gardeners who plant lettuce greens in the fissures of brick buildings—life sustaining fruits and vegetables and oxygen producers thriving in the most seemingly inhospitable spaces. 

And indeed, it has been with inextinguishable determination and dedication that this incredible team of people gathered and made a play under less-than-ideal growing conditions. We worked on Zoom until our eyes and bodies ached, lovingly nurturing the seeds of Renae’s beautiful living organic play as it grew. We became the community that tended this story’s fertile soil. And despite the storm of our challenging moment, our Community Garden is growing, flowering and flourishing and fruiting.

Cast:

Carla Nickerson

Carina Ramirez

Chloe Whitehead

Julia Salazar

Aria Morgan

Garden Consultant: Sally Jung

Lighting Design: Alyssa Finger

Sound Design: Alex Titsworth

Costume Design: Court Rogers

PRODUCTION art by court rogers
production photos by Logan Smith
Garden progress photos by kristen osborn and Renae Simone Jarrett