Synopsis.

In the fall of 2000, two front page stories in a Moscow, Idaho newspaper attract the attention of Roz Weber, her nineteen year old daughter, Zoë, and her partner, Stan Nikalaou. One article reports a giant timber company’s announcement of its planned harvesting of two thousand acres old growth forest, while the other describes the discovery of a “feral child” in the same area.
 
Soon these events will have a profound effect on the lives of all three:  Roz is the child development specialist and Stan is the head of pediatrics at the hospital where the lost child, an abused little girl portrayed by the press as having been raised or cared for by wolves, is brought for evaluation and rehabilitation. Both become increasingly attached to her, although the traumatized and previously isolated child’s capacity for relationship and recovery remains uncertain. Meanwhile, Zoë, a Vietnamese-born student at Washington State University in nearby Pullman, has become involved with a environmental group committed to saving the threatened forest. Zoë, who had been adopted in her native Vietnam by Roz and her former husband, Daryl, is to an extent, also a lost child. When she accepts the guardianship of a huge, ancient cedar tree as part of the logging protest, her elected isolation leads to a new sense of purpose, but also to the return of forgotten memories and fears.
 
Ultimately, the lives of all are shaken and ultimately threatened by corporate interests, a traditional medical establishment, the intrusiveness of the media, and the violence of white supremacists. While Treed explores issues concerning the threatened forests and wildlife of the Northwest, as well as the painful history of its native people, at its center is the very personal drama of four unusual people during a time of life-changing crisis.
 
Cast requirements: four females, including a young Asian woman and a girl of nine or ten, three adult males.
 
Set: Single, multi-level set.
 
Running time: approximately two hours
 
 
Awards and History.
 
Finalist for the Christopher Brian Wolk Award, Abington Theatre, New York, NY, 2006.
Finalist for the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, McCall, ID, 2007.
(The Seven Devils Conference is sponsored by the Alpine Playhouse and made possible in part by the A.K. Starr Charitable Trust, Idaho Commission on the Arts & The National Endowment for the Arts.)
 

Readings.

Radiant Theater Reading, Portland, OR, 2006
Oregon Stage Works Reading, Ashland, OR, 2007.