Where’s the Revival of 'The Secret Garden' We Deserve?
by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder
Every time a new Broadway season gets announced, I do that thing where I quietly brace myself. You know the feeling. The flashy revival that’s already had three lives. The “bold reimagining” of something that didn’t really need one. The inevitable announcement that makes you say, out loud, “Didn’t we just do that?”
And every year, somewhere in the middle of it all, I ask the same question. Is this finally the year The Secret Garden comes back?
And every year, somehow, it isn’t.
I genuinely don’t understand it. The Secret Garden checks every box Broadway audiences claim they’re craving right now. It’s emotional without being manipulative. It’s beautiful without being empty. It’s about grief and isolation and the slow, painful work of learning how to live again after loss. People don’t just sing in this show. They change. They grow. They soften. It’s not flashy. It’s honest. Which, frankly, feels radical these days.
I also say all of this as someone who owes the show an apology.
I saw the original Broadway production on a school field trip when I was in elementary school. Balcony. Back row. Surrounded by kids who had absolutely no business being trusted to sit still for two and a half hours. I whispered. I wiggled. I was probably insufferable. What haunts me now is the realization that I was watching Mandy Patinkin and Rebecca Luker live onstage and had no idea what that meant. None. Zero awareness. I couldn’t tell you a thing about the plot, but somewhere in there, the music lodged itself into my bones.
Years later, I came back to the score as an adult and it flattened me. Suddenly I understood what the show was actually doing. The restraint. The ache. The way it lets silence and longing do just as much work as the big moments. Ever since then, I’ve been waiting for its return. Partly because I want to make it up to my younger, oblivious self. Mostly because I think it’s time.
The original 1991 production wasn’t a juggernaut, but it did something better. It built devotion. There’s an entire generation of theatre people who carry this show around with them. “Lily’s Eyes.” “Hold On.” “How Could I Ever Know?” These songs never went away. They show up in auditions, in concerts, in late-night cabaret sets when someone wants to quietly destroy a room. Lucy Simon’s score is lush and aching and sneaks up on you. It’s classical and intimate at the same time, the kind of music that doesn’t beg for attention but rewards you for listening.
And sure, we’ve had some almosts. That immaculate Lincoln Center concert. The stunning production at Shakespeare Theatre Company in D.C. The whispers of a Broadway transfer that always seem to evaporate right before anything real happens. For some reason, The Secret Garden keeps getting close… and then stuck outside the gate.
Meanwhile, we keep reviving shows that don’t feel nearly as necessary.
That’s the frustrating part. Because a revival could be extraordinary. A real orchestra, letting that score breathe the way it deserves. A design that allows the garden to literally bloom in front of us instead of relying on irony or minimalism for the sake of it. A cast of actors and kids who can handle both the heartbreak and the hope without winking at the audience.
And thematically? It fits the moment almost too perfectly. We’re still carrying so much loss. So much exhaustion. So much collective grief we haven’t really processed. The Secret Garden doesn’t offer easy answers, but it offers something better: patience. Renewal. The quiet insistence that life can come back, even when you’re not sure you believe it will. We need more theatre like that. Theatre that heals instead of postures. Theatre that gently says, “Hold on,” and actually means it.
There’s so much here, just waiting to be uncovered again. And in a landscape where audiences have shown up for heartfelt revivals like Gypsy and Sunset Boulevard, you can’t convince me there isn’t room for this one too.
Maybe next year. Maybe the year after that. I’ll keep holding my breath, because some stories deserve another season in the light. This one has been buried long enough.