SEQUIM — Olympic Theatre Arts’ production of “The Immigrant Garden ~ Letters” — set to coincide with Sequim’s Lavender Weekend in July — is cast and in rehearsal.
“The Immigrant Garden ~ Letters” will run from July 12 to 21. Performance times will be 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sunday.
Pay-What-You-Will night will be July 18, with the curtain rising at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $15 for the general public, $13 for OTA members and $10 for students with school identification card.
Tickets are available at the theater box office between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays or online at www.Olympic TheatreArts.org.
Cast in the two leading roles are veteran actress Sharon DelaBarre as Louise Beauchamp, an elderly and somewhat eccentric English gardener, and newcomer Kait Saffold as Cecily Barnes, a young and dreamy Washingtonian gardener.
Set in 1910, Caroline Wood’s play sees Barnes passionate about having a flower garden. She finds a catalogue from “Mrs. Beauchamp’s Mystical Flower Seed and Herb Emporium” and sends off to England for seeds.
The contact blooms into an exchange of letters between young Cecily and Beauchamp that grows into a friendship transcending time and oceans.
“I love Louise; she starts off saying basically that she’s older so she’ll just do what she wants to,” DelaBarre said. “She embeds character into her flowers, the butterflies in her garden, the toads in the grass, whatever. She’s even given the brook in her garden a personality.”
Saffold said: “Every time we rehearse I feel like it’s a really special project. There’s just a lot of good gems and lessons in there. Even though it’s a period play I feel like it’s really timeless.”
Also cast is Della LaCour, who was born in the same city of Yorkshire, England, from which the character of Louise writes her letters. LaCour plays Helen Curtis, a friend of Louise.
“I have not been on the stage since I was a child,” LaCour said, “but, wow, something told me I needed to go do this. The underlying messages with flowers and life and roots and things — it’s really touching.”
Director Cathy Marshal said the play touches her heart.
“It conveys a heightened sense of relationships, especially inter-generational,” Marshal said.
“You’ve got a young woman of seventeen and an older woman who is in her seventies communicating across continents. It’s a lovely idea just being able to be friends and get to know one another even with that kind of distance in 1910.
“The play is lighthearted in a lot of places, but it’s also real sweet and tender throughout.”
Additional cast members include Joe Schulz as John Burrows, a Washington arborist, Carl Honore as Professor Barnes, Cecily’s father and Nolan Gordash as Quentin, young Cecily’s love interest.
“There are some real basic human lessons in this show,” DelaBarre said. “It’s about flowers and gardens on the surface, but the play is really about human growth and blossoming, and growing into your potential.”
For more information, call the theater at 360-683-7326.
