Last week, we troubled Aaron Cromie—co-creator of and performer in A Paper Garden—for some insight into how the play was created. A Paper Garden debuts next week as part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Cromie was kind enough to take time to send us some thoughts. Read below for a peek into the process behind A Paper Garden.
1) Why did you choose Josephine Bonaparte and Andre Michaux to be the stars of the play?
We know Josephine was a great lover of plants, trees and flowers. . . .Combined with the energy and passion of Michaux and his spirited sense of adventure, we thought that it would be fun to suppose a relationship between the two figures, and see a possible influence they might have had on each other had they been close friends and collaborators.
2) What kind of research did you do for this play? How did that inform the writing?
APS provided us with a lot of articles and online resources as well as the exhibit itself. Plus, as an ensemble, we went to visit Bartram’s Garden [and] . . . had a tour of the Jefferson Garden’s contents as the Greenhouse was being installed. We also spent time learning to fold paper to experiment with making the paper flowers used in the play.
3) What do you think viewers will enjoy/ what should we look out for?
We’ve definitely based the play in the reality of the historical figures’ experience, [although] with a whimsical departure from the exhibit into a lively comedy that masquerades as a historical play. There is a sense of humor about the play – it isn’t for history purists, though we hope the audience finds the excitement and delight we all have in imagining the ‘garden of the future.’ I think the audience will enjoy the songs, the paper flowers, the real plants, and the bilingual nature of the show, as Michaux, Josephine, and Saunier the Gardener speak in French.
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