Lark Eden is an epistolary play which traces the lives and life-long friendships of three southern women beginning in the Depression era and continuing through the early years of the new century, offering a lyrical exploration of the ties that bind us together as tightly as family, and as surely as love. From frog-catching girls with skinned knees to world-wizened grandmothers, Lark Eden follows these three women through personal trials and victories no less daunting than the historical tribulations which provide the backdrop to these everyday American lives.
acclaim for Lark Eden
A charming epistolary play.
American Theatre Magazine
This is a sensitive and witty trip through life, all our lives, brilliantly written by Natalie Symons…It's the play that really shines. It sneaks up on you. What begins as a pleasant romp gradually activates more and more emotions.
The Seattle Times
Remarkable, and very moving… The script is ambitious in scope, but grounded in the milestones of real lives fully lived… linguistically rich, diving deep into a lyrical Southern patois that is charming and easy on the ears… Symons’ has a talent for capturing the authenticity of both the language and emotional core of her characters. You may have heard the generic histories of similar "salt of the earth" American women countless times before, but never so respectfully or so affectingly.
Crosscut.com
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A thing of joy and sorrow and whimsy and rueful acceptance...Natalie Symons' "Lark Eden" is a beautiful and affecting piece that celebrates friendship, giving us a portrait of three close friends as they grow and age. It is also a moving portrait of how friendship can provide the anchor as the winds of change and time ravage family and children and everything else we tend to call "our own."
Atlanta Theatre Buzz
Symons is a quite a playwright, a major talent... It's a powerful show scribed by a powerful voice that needs to be heard quite often.
BroadwayWorld.com
A thing of joy and sorrow and whimsy and rueful acceptance...Natalie Symons' "Lark Eden" is a beautiful and affecting piece that celebrates friendship, giving us a portrait of three close friends as they grow and age. It is also a moving portrait of how friendship can provide the anchor as the winds of change and time ravage family and children and everything else we tend to call "our own."
Atlanta Theatre Buzz
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Surrounded by a chorus of sobs and a solemn wiping-away of tears, the nearest I’ve yet experienced to (Thornton Wilder’s) OUR TOWN took place last weekend at Theater Schmeater where Natalie Symons epistolary play LARK EDEN has returned… Sonorous lyricism instills the play with a poetic, confessional, emotionally earnest quality… A portrait of an unconditional love, and a bit of an exploration of 20th century American history and life.
Seattle Star
If you’ve ever wondered about the strange shape life tends to take over many decades, you’ll want to see Lark Eden, Natalie Symons’ loving portrayal of three female friends from childhood to old age… Symons captures the feel of human experience so expertly, she provokes us to just the sort of philosophizing she and her characters eschew…there’s another fine playwright in the Tampa Bay area. Her name is Symons, and she’s truly talented.
Creative Loafing Tampa
It is truly a tale of great happiness and great sorrow that every person can relate
to, young or old, man or woman.
Tampa Bay Examiner
As sweet as a Georgia peach...funny, emotionally complex, and engaging.
Drama in the Hood
Several talented local playwrights offered their work during this season, but the
play that went beyond a mere facility with dialogue and character was Symons’
LARK EDEN, produced at New American Theatre a year ago and then reprised at
freeFall in March. It showed a canny understanding of the changes time,
circumstances and accident can bring. This was intelligent – no, wise – playwriting.
Best of the Bay, Creative Loafing Tampa
"brilliantly written"
The Seattle Times
Natalie Symons
Author / Playwright