A deadly garden blooms in a new play at Media Theatre

An uninvited guest shows up at a high-stakes, high-society gala performance for donors working to save a community theater.

The community-minded donors want to restore the town’s theater, but the nefarious guest, a horticulturalist, has cultivated a mysterious garden of plants with their own deadly agendas. l.

That’s the plot of Poison Garden, running through Aug. 13 at the Media Theatre where the audience — and the theater — become characters in the show.

“The show is meant to feel like a really good procedural and, like, a campy horror show at the same time,” said Kaitlin Chin, the show’s director as well as the founder and owner of Alterra Productions, the company producing Poison Garden.

Chin’s company, formerly known as Cirque du Nuit, creates theatrical and circus spectacles. “Circus helps to elevate the storytelling,” she said. “We take mundane objects — something that exists in normal life — and use circus to elevate this moment.”

Alterra offers full-scale productions as well, including an earlier Halloween version of Poison Garden staged at Glen Foerd, a historic mansion on the banks of the Delaware River in Northeast Philadelphia.

Part of Chin’s creative process involves using the history of the venue. At Glen Foerd, it meant delving into the stories of the families who lived there. For the Media production, she researched the history of the theater. “It opened in 1927 as a vaudeville theater.”

Poison Garden picks up the story at a point where, as in Media Theatre’s real-life history, community-minded philanthropists come together to save the theater. But in this version, the horticulturist uses the donors in an experiment to test properties of certain plants.

Chin’s research showed that past owners of Glen Foerd had planted a poison garden, growing mind-altering and lethal plants.

In the play, Chin said, “people are living their lives and this supernatural garden comes in — and it’s trying to survive. And in order to survive, it has to consume people — in a particular way.”

Audience members can experience the show as they wish — walking around the theater, following one of the seven actors, or just moving to look at whatever seems interesting.

“It’s sandbox-style immersive show where you, as the audience, can walk around the venue like it’s your own sandbox,” Chin said.

“We’re not using the theater. We’re using the basement area, the lobby, the Crystal Room, some upstairs areas, and offices — spaces that are not normally shared with the audiences. We’ve created dressing rooms in some of the spaces,” she said.

Contributing to Poison Garden’s opening night vibe are a cash bar and a limited menu of small bites.

The performances conclude with a talk back to help audiences process what they’ve seen and what they may have missed on their wanderings.

“I hope they explore everything,” Chin said. “I hope they are able to take a second and shrug off all of the day’s stressors — let the magic of theater give them the moment of escapism and just be able to breathe in these characters and this world.”

“Poison Garden,” Alterra Productions, runs through Aug. 13 at Media Theatre, 104 E. State St., Media, 608-322-6875 or alterraproductions.com. Check with the theater for COVID-19 protocols. For information on other local events, visit inquirer.com/things-to-do-philly