Kennesaw's Smith-Gilbert Gardens invites young audiences to new and interactive play

Scenes from the KSU Theatre Performance at Smith-Gilbert Gardens on Saturday in Kennesaw, GA. (Courtesy of Mooreshots LLC)

Changing seasons in Georgia’s lush forests is always a spectacle. In Kennesaw, Smith-Gilbert Gardens invites young audiences to experience the cycles of seasons in nature with the interactive play “Opossum and the Season Stone.”

It’s a performance aimed at ages zero to eight, along with their adult caregivers, and features talented Kennesaw State students and faculty, as well as live musical accompaniment on cello. The performances take place at Kennesaw’s Swift Cantrell Park in the children’s forest area on Nov. 15 and 16, as well as the 22 and 23.

City Lights” producer Summer Evans recently sat down with Smith-Gilbert Gardens Education and Exhibits manager Vanita Keswani along with “Opossum and the Season Stone” lead instructor and playwright Nicole Adkins to discuss the Garden grounds and its new interactive play!

“Opossum and the Season Stone” is the second collaboration between Adkins and Keswami, this time an exploration of the garden as fall approaches and its denizens begin to go dormant for the season. Adkins wanted to explore the difficulties and joys that change brings in its wake, giving the young audiences that participate a chance to engage with those ideas.

The play begins with a young opossum learning about the approach of winter with little idea about what to expect, which causes a lot of resistance to the idea of major change.

“[Opossum] just refuses to get ready for it,” says Adkins. “The audience is invited to help Opossum go on a journey to understand what it is that’s really happening and why and why that change is necessary – so that they can come to a place of acceptance.”

Tickets for the play can be found here, and more information at Smith-Gilbert Garden’s site here.