(upbeat music) - Plan B Theatre is presenting the world premier of "The Beatrix Potter Defense Society," a play exploring the teenage life of Beatrix Potter.

And here to tell us more about the show is playwright Janine Sobeck Knighton.

Hi, Janine, thanks so much - Hi.

for being here.

- Thank you.

- So, I am so curious about this play.

So, what gave you the idea?

- So, it actually is my COVID play.

(chuckles) - Oh!

- Yeah, so, as the world was kinda coming out of COVID, I was pregnant and it was a very high risk pregnancy.

And so, I kinda had to stay in a moment of isolation longer.

And as so many people do, I turned to stories, and I was trying to find other people who kind of understood that isolation.

And I stumbled across Beatrix Potter, who, you know, I knew as a children's author, but I didn't know much more about her, and learned that she had actually been pretty severely isolated as a child.

Her parents had kind of kept her and her brother locked in the nursery.

And I was just really curious of how that moment led to her becoming the Beatrix Potter that we knew.

And so, I was really interested in kind of exploring that journey.

- Oh, wow, a really interesting story.

I had no idea.

So, how did you go about creating the play around that?

- So, I started looking more and more into her life, and another fun fact that I didn't know was that much later in her life, she ended up pretty much saving the Lake District in England.

She bought up lots of plots of land with the money that she had made from Beatrix Potter, and pretty much anything that was gonna be earmarked for development.

(chuckles) And then when she passed, she bequeathed all that to the National Trust.

And so, that whole area is saved pretty much because of her.

And the first time that she went there was when she was 16, and so the play takes place in that moment, was her first time there.

And she's being faced with the idea of having to return to London and kind of returning back to that isolation.

And so, she doesn't want to go.

- Wow, fascinating story.

Glad you did the play, and looking forward to seeing it.

Thank you!

- Thank you.

And if you'd like to know more about the "Beatrix Potter Defense Society" at Plan B, March 27th, April 3rd, go to planbtheatre.org.

I'm Mary Dickson thanks for watching "Contact."

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