Original adaptation of The Secret Garden opens in Baker City
Baker City’s stage garden was planted by a homegrown script, with $10 opening-night tickets and a full volunteer cast drawing families downtown.
A hidden garden, a grumpy old gardener and two spoiled children came to life on the Eastern Oregon Regional Theatre stage at 2101 Main St., where The Secret Garden opened April 24 in an original adaptation written by director Cindy Ratterman. The production gave Baker City a spring weekend draw that was part theater, part downtown outing, with affordable tickets aimed at families looking for an evening or matinee close to home.
The show runs April 24-26 and again May 1-3, with Friday and Saturday performances at 6 p.m. and Sunday matinees at 3 p.m. Tickets cost $13 for adults, $11 for EORT members and $8 for students, and opening night came with a $10 special. For a county where distance and budget often shape whether people go out at all, those prices put a full stage production within reach of a wider slice of the community.
Ratterman did not start with a finished script. She said she could not find one she liked for the public-domain story she loves, so she wrote her own adaptation just four days before auditions, pulling from several scripts and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel. Ratterman said she loves the story’s sweetness and its theme of people coming together, which fits a plot built around change, friendship and the slow restoration of a neglected place.
That restoration is the heart of the story: two spoiled children, a grumpy old gardener and a hidden garden that gradually comes back to life, bringing magic and transformation with it. The production also depended on a sizable cast and production crew, underscoring how much local theater in Baker City runs on volunteer energy, backstage labor and people willing to step into the lights. In a town that has long supported community theater, this staging stood out because it was not just another revival. It was a fresh, locally built version of a familiar story, giving downtown Baker City another reason for families to fill seats and making the theater part of the weekend economy as well as the cultural calendar.
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