Evy in the Garden is a spare and stunning new work by Carolyn Surrick – a window into a family’s grief, a poignant reminder of the unending boundaries of love, a vehicle for memory, and a place where words and music meet to make room for the aching heart.
Actress Laurie O’Brien manifests a perfect partnership with Surrick’s soulful viola da gamba as they bring to life the southern Maryland summer days that follow the sudden death of a young man. In the same way that the most beautiful and most terrible things often stand side by side, so this quiet testament to life, family, and sorrow, examines a road winding from tragedy to grace.
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Evy in the Garden is the third touring project based on Surrick’s poetry. Between War and Here, a powerful multi-disciplinary show toured nationally in 2018 - 2019. This transformative work featured the music of Ensemble Galilei with narrators Neal Conan and Anne Garrels (NPR). Front Row Seat featuring actors Nicholas Hormann and Lily Knight and the music of Ensemble Galilei had performances in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Annapolis in 2023, and Evy in the Garden had its first performance in Los Angeles in 2024.
Laurie O'Brien is best known as Deborah Hünterschmidt on HULU’s Complete Works and Dr. Anderson on WIGSCO’s Susana, and as the voices of Ivana on CTW’s Cro and Piggy on CBS’ Muppet Babies. Other television credits include guest appearances on ABC’s NYPD Blue, CBS’ Chicago Hope, NBC’s ER, WB’s 7th Heaven, NBC’s L.A. Law, CBS’ Cagney & Lacey, and CBS’ Trapper John, M.D.
Film credits include Bottle Shock, Disfigured, Little Chenier, Around the Bend, Mockingbird Don’t Sing, One More Mountain, Harry and the Hendersons, Infidelity, Deadly Care, Convicted,Calamity Jane, and Gas, Food Lodging.
Theatre credits include Anne in Lake Anne (Road Theatre); Carlotta Gray in A Song at Twilight(Odyssey Theatre); Virginia in The Clean House (Alhecama Theatre); and Sylvia in Shattered Secrets(Powerhouse Theatre).
Musician, composer, poet, and producer, Carolyn Surrick has been hailed as one of the most prolific and innovative artists in her field. She has performed in concert halls, churches, clubs, listening rooms, hospitals, bars (it was the seventies), on front porches, in libraries, pre-schools, and every other kind of school, on a ranch in Montana, and in the middle of a field in Cora, Wyoming - the cattle were fascinated. Her original compositions are in the film score for Letters from the Big Man, she is the music director for the short film, Catch and Release, and she was an on-screen musician in The Pelican Brief. She can be heard on numerous recordings, some of which she produced, and she has recorded and performed with many, many, extraordinary musicians from the traditional music world and the early music world.
