Christina Mei Chen (left) and Deyki Ronge in Urbanite Theatre's The Apiary. Photo by Sorcha Augustine.

Bees, as nearly every child learns in elementary school, serve a vital role in Earth’s ecosystem. Bee pollination is what enables plant reproduction—if bees were to go extinct and pollination became all but naught, what would become of the world? Widespread famine, global crop shortages, utter catastrophe?

Such is the subject of Urbanite Theatre’s latest production, The Apiary, premiering on March 20. The play, which premiered Off-Broadway in 2024, was written by Kate Douglas and was developed at Urbanite during the theater’s 2023 Modern Works Festival.

“It’s not always easy for Urbanite to find a comedy that is funny, but also has a lot to say at the same time,” says Summer Wallace, Urbanite’s producing artistic director. “This play is set 22 years into the future and honeybees are nearly extinct. We meet two scientists, Zora and Pilar, who are working in a lab to get bees to pollinate—the story focuses on what we will go through to keep the world evolving. It’s a provocative comedy about sacrifice and the ethics of discovery.”

Zora and Pilar—under the overbearing eye of their supervisor Gwen—struggle to find a way to get the bees to pollinate. That is, until the body of a former coworker appears in the apiary, creating a makeshift hive for the bees. In the darkly comedic world of The Apiary, Zora and Pilar resort to drastic measures—recruiting terminally ill cancer patients to donate their bodies to science—in an effort to create hives and grow the bee population.

Part of the challenge of the production is logistical. Without releasing actual bees into the theater, Wallace aims to employ sound and illusory techniques to create the presence of bees that is so central to the play. “The set dressing for the play is so much fun to create with all of the apiary hives,” says Wallce, who is also directing the production. “We’re very lucky that our master carpenter, Eugene Alcorn, is also a master illusionist. He builds illusions for magicians that work all over the world.”

The Apiary, March 20-April 19, Urbanite Theatre, 1487 2nd St., Sarasota.

Christina Mei Chen (left) and Deyki Ronge in Urbanite Theatre's The Apiary. Photo by Sorcha Augustine.

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