- It was an abandoned electrical warehouse, and they would drive trucks in here.

I believe there were parts of this garden were cemented over.

The bar was just an open lean to.

It had no walls.

I remember my dad, Jim Cullum, saying, "You know, well, you know, you could just pave this whole thing and you could park cars in here."

And I'm like, "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 wanna sit in this outdoor space.

- And I've always just felt that it helps your soul, you know, feel more grounded and connected to the Earth.

Being able to work with the garden and learn its lessons.

- I was in graduate school and formed The VORTEX with colleagues in grad school, and our first year we performed at Mexic-Arte downtown.

And, they had a theater space, and we performed in several locations in their building.

And then we got an abandoned movie theater on Ben White Boulevard, which was a movie triplex.

It was 17,000 square feet.

And then in 1994, we started the search for a new home.

And I was able to strike up a deal with the property owner where he gave us a cheap rent for the first couple of years.

We did shows out here.

That's what these truss towers that have all the plants on them, they came in so that we could have lighting outside.

I think it's really essential that we make theater that is creating the world that we want to make.

So in theater, we have a choice of not necessarily creating reality, but creating, like a magical realism, like a world that challenges the status quo, that takes 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.

I think it's super important that we're bringing those values outside and into reality and saying, "Yes, this is the magic that we believe in.

This is the truth that we believe in.

This is what we're trying to do.

And then these are the real plants that are creating that life cycle."

We had been planting trees here at The VORTEX and cultivating some plants.

So Earth has really always been at our foundation as one of our core values.

But then we decided to rebrand the whole butterfly bar and create a butterfly sanctuary as part of that endeavor.

So that was in 2011, and we had our first garden party that spring in 2011 with the newly named Butterfly Bar, and then the Butterfly Garden.

And people brought all kinds of plants.

We planted them all around the deck.

The last couple of years, my Girl Scout troop has come and we see more and more children going and selecting these plants with their parents and then coming here and getting to plant a plant.

And then when they come back to see a show or to eat it at Patrizi's or something, they always go and visit their plant.

- One of the ones everyone notices is the passion vine.

Being able to walk through it and around it, you can see the caterpillars, you see them eating the leaves, and it's kind of right in your face there.

And I put the a sign on there for which butterflies like to lay their eggs on them, and drink the nectar from the flowers.

So I let it hang down and people can kind of move it and kinda be more a part of it that way.

I've been embellishing the beds in front of the outdoor stage here.

There have been years where they have gotten so tall.

You can't see the performers, so I prune them in a special way.

It's a little more under control now.

What's wonderful about any performance that happens on the stage in the garden is that you have this built in audience.

By the end of the performance, they have been a part of this experience and this magical garden space.

- You know, when we came here, and this was a fairly barren space.

So, you know, we're trying to visualize how to make it really verdant, how to make it alive.

And then, you know, we start hearing all this tragic news about the bees and the butterflies, and, you know, how could we make an urban garden that will help preserve what's really important about life, these pollinators.

The butterflies offer such an amazing lesson because, you know, they know how to lay their egg on the plants that their caterpillar is gonna eat.

And then the caterpillar miraculously knows how to make a chrysalis and transform into a totally different animal.

I mean, that's crazy.

And when you look like monarch chrysalis, that the magic going on inside, you can see these glowing golden lights and it's like, that is magic that's happening in there.

- I've always loved taking photographs.

I try to pay attention to what's going on in that particular plant, whether something needs to be pruned, or maybe I could do a little quick weeding.

And that's when you start to notice little butterflies.

Sometimes they're big butterflies, sometimes they fly right by your face or sometimes you see a shadow and you look over and you'll see them.

And 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.

- A lot of the art that's in the garden that's theater stuff.

We have over the years put objects that were particularly cool out and kind of let them decay over time.

The public who's out here, they're like, "What is that thing?

What is that thing?"

So there's sort of interest in there's always something different happening here, whether it's a performance on the stage or a tower of books.

- It just came out of the theater from a show called The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body by Lisa B.Thompson.

She is a professor at UT.

And the set designer wanted a book helix, and then it turned it into a tree.

The barrel was a set piece.

It was used as like a barrel fire scenario.

So after the show, we, you know, decided to repurpose it as a big pot, made sure that had drainage from underneath.

One of our talented artistic workstudy students painted the outside.

So it was just kind of a rusted metal before.

It's a roughleaf dogwood.

It just had a bunch of clusters of white flowers that bloomed in there.

They'll turn into seeds which birds also will partake in.

- It came from San Antonio, from Brackenridge Park.

And my father being the lover of old, decaying things that must be saved, they were gonna tear this shed down.

And he went over to them and he said, "Okay, well, how much do you want for it?"

And he got it pretty cheap.

And he hired a crew to come in and tear it down and bring it up here, where it sat rusting in the yard for a few years.

And I was like, "Aah."

I told him either he needed to take it to the dump or put it together.

We've rented it to people to have little events.

We've done art installations in there.

Not only are the people who are doing the shows gathering here, people who are coming to the shows gathering here, but people who are just part of the theater community come over and have their production meeting or come over after their show and have a drink.

And they know that they're also supporting a theater when they come here.

Patrizi's is busy every night, unless it's storming.

People want to sit outside and eat pasta and, you know, have a glass of wine from the Butterfly Bar and maybe they'll take in a show.

I feel like that has made this space alive, and that's kinda coming back to that heart of the community and family and the way that people are connected through the theater.

I've been really thrilled to get to see the whole garden come to life, it's always one of my favorite moments when Alex has got a new caterpillar or a new butterfly.

I come rushing out to see what it is and check it out.

And it's really exciting.

(gentle bright music)