Surround Spotlight: Native Gardens Music

by Eva Laporte, in collaboration with John Coker

The Music of Native Gardens: Inside John Coker’s Curated Pre-Show and Post-Show Playlists

Enjoy These Playlists Inspired by Borders, Beauty, and Connection

In Native Gardens, neighbors clash over property lines, taste, class, culture, and what it means to belong—but beneath the comedy lies a deeper question about the borders we create between ourselves. Playwright Karen Zacarías reveals how quickly ideas of ownership, aesthetics, and identity can become rigid, even absurd.

For this Surround Spotlight, John Coker created a musical journey for pre- and post-show that mirrors those tensions: separation and harmony, contrast and convergence. Beginning with distinct string voices and ending in a shared sonic landscape, the playlists reflect the play’s central truth—that the lines dividing us are often far more imaginary than real.

Music illuminates the imaginary nature of the lines of separation we create. Our commonalities are immediately visible, highlighting the absurdities of the differences we so often present as elemental.

In our pre-show, we alternate between two string quartets – bowed vs. plucked; violins vs. guitars. With string instruments, we see the same exact interfaces used to conjure our inner spirits across national and cultural boundaries. These come from the Budapest String Quartet vs. the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet.

In our post-show, these voices are brought together – violins and guitars playing together at the same time. Here we have guitarists Lubomir Brabec and Martin Mysliveček, with the Prague Chamber Orchestra.

With each treatment, as with people, what is shared significantly outweighs what is different. 

Listen in on the playlists for Native Gardens: 

See Native Gardens on April 11, 2026