March 25, 2025
Butterfly Garden Performs at The VORTEX Repertory Theater
In a metamorphosis of once hard-packed earth at an abandoned warehouse, an urban butterfly sanctuary restores life to soil and soul in daily pollinator shows at The VORTEX Repertory Theater garden.
In March 2024, I headed over for their annual Garden Party, a family-fun event to plant something new and celebrate spring with music, performance, and crafts. And then in May, the crew and I returned to meet with visionary Bonnie Cullum, The VORTEX co-founder and producing artistic director.
In 1988, she and a few grad school colleagues launched a theater to challenge the status quo and take on important issues of our time. “And one of those, of course, is climate crisis and the environment and the way that humanity is interacting with the world,” she told us.
In 1994, they moved to the old building on Manor Road. The rent was cheap—no surprise—since it lacked basic amenities like heat, air, and restrooms until later renovations. “That’s what these truss towers that have all the plants on them, they came in so that we could have lighting outside,” she said. The outdoor stage still hosts events and performances, where sky high passion vine dangles its fruits on one truss during our November visit. Another hosts Caroline snailseed and its glossy red berries for birds.
When Bonnie’s dad, renowned jazz musician Jim Cullum, suggested paving over the yard for parking, she responded, “No, it’s got this specialness to it. And I really want to plant more trees and more plants and have this be the destination that people want to sit in this outdoor space.”
On our fall visit, butterflies and bees were all over the passion vine flowers, while Gulf fritillary caterpillars happily chomped their way to a new generation of butterflies.
Enter Alex Cogburn, box office manager and keeper of the butterfly sanctuary, who shares Bonnie’s passion for theater, plants, and all creatures. His colorful sign, painted with scraps from set building, represents native groundcover Texas frogfruit. A host plant for several species of butterflies, its thumbnail-sized white flowers attract many small pollinators.
He propagates frogfruit and many plants for the garden and the community, like Bonnie’s Girl Scout troop. To the left, native flame acanthus attracts hummingbirds and butterflies to its summertime flame-orange tubular flowers.
Alex designs for successional blooming with annuals, perennials, trees, vines, and shrubs. He also wants host plants for caterpillars and berries for birds.
On the Butterfly Bar’s deck, patrons can sip their drinks and toast the butterflies and bees sampling their floral libations. Convivial birds chime into animated conversations.
Alex is a photographer who documents the many species that drop in. “I’ll take a moment and put down the hose or put down the pruners and try to get a picture. I love the idea of being able to have some sort of catalog or inventory of what we’ve seen here at The VORTEX,” he said. Their work was recognized as a Certified Butterfly Garden of the North American Butterfly Association—a great site for design ideas and butterfly identification.
To maximize flower power, he goes vertical however he can. Spring blooming native coralvine attracts hummingbirds and butterflies without upstaging its companions.
Some theater props and set pieces find their way to the garden after their final curtain call. Alex turned a rusty metal barrel into a planter (with drainage) for a native roughleaf dogwood. A talented work study charmed it up.
Roughleaf dogwood’s spring flowers nourish pollinators, while birds later devour its plump white berries.
I was astonished at the number of peaches on their tree! Yet, the stack of Styrofoam books was equally intriguing. Alex explained that they were a set piece in UT professor Lisa B. Thompson’s The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body.
Bonnie’s dad couldn’t resist rescuing an old pony shed from Brackenridge Park in San Antonio. Eventually, he renovated it, where it’s now a cozy spot for events and art installations.
And the family VORTEX can’t resist the sweet strays that join the cast, including Smokey and Radius.
There’s always a crowd for Patrizi’s fresh pasta and aromatic sauces to dine alfresco with a glass from The Butterfly Bar, and perhaps tickets to a show that night.
Through April 20, the inside stage presents MotherTree, conceived and directed by Bonnie. From their website: “Weaving Dance, Music, and Magic, MotherTree creates a unique vision of our relationships with trees. Faery Magic and Earth Science engage our imaginations as we travel through the mycorrhizal network to learn from the Trees. The urgency of Climate Crisis compels us to take environmental action and to commit deep work grounded in reciprocality and respect.”
Get tickets and check out their terrific ongoing events lineup.
I’m glad we met Radius (named for the head robot in the Rossum’s Universal Robots, written in 1920, when robots take over humanity), since he passed away this year at age 16. He’s watched the garden come alive, side by side with an appreciative audience.
Thank you for stopping by! Next week, we launch new programs for the spring season. See you then!
