Black Billed Cuckoo at La Jolla
Watching Birds and Discovering Selves
By: Shaon Eubanks - Sep 28, 2026
A Black-billed Cuckoo, is the second play written by Mat Smart as part of the DNA New Work Series at the La Jolla Playhouse. Smart, an avid birder himself, got the idea for the play during a birding outing after he didn’t see the cuckoo that everyone else saw. The play, directed by Shelley Butler, follows five bird-watchers over 24 hours in Prospect Park, Brooklyn.
The play begins with the five birders peering intently through their binoculars. Marje, the leader, a photographer (Tessa), Ruth, Ed, and Sadie, who is somewhat younger than the others, make up the group. As the group shouts out the names of birds, Marje slows them down and reminds them how they should not rush to identify a bird. Look for the details she tells them; an eye of a certain color, rings around the eye, color pattern of the feather, the shape and size of a beak.
Tessa, who spends more time clicking her camera than really looking at birds, starts clicking frantically. Marge and Ed, with that extra birder sense, know that she has seen something and immediately train their binoculars in the direction of her camera lens. And they see it; the elusive black-billed cuckoo!
The birders are filled with delight and awe, but Ruth does not see the bird. Heartbroken at missing the bird, Ruth vows not to leave until she has seen the bird.
Sadie accidentally exposes herself as Ruth’s daughter when Ruth refuses to leave the park. The group learns through Sadie that Ruth is a grieving widow. Five years ago, her husband, an avid birder, died within a day of seeing the black-billed cuckoo. Ruth takes up her late husband’s hobby as her own so she can see the bird her husband saw. Worried about her mother being in the park alone, Sadie asks the group to keep an eye on Ruth. So begins a 24-hour emotional, soul-searching journey of five people who thought they knew each other and themselves.
The set resembles the quintessential New York City park; bright, noisy, open during the day and somewhat foreboding at night. In this environment, the birders bare their souls. As Ruth sits on the park bench, members of the group come to sit with her throughout the night. Even though they have been birding with each other for years in some cases, they reveal things about themselves no one in the group ever knew.
For some of them, birding was a way to be a part of nature, for others, a way to escape the weekday grind, and for Ruth, a means to not move on with her life.
Twenty-four hours later, not only are they a group of bird-watchers who just meet with each other for a few hours on a weekend morning. They are soul mates and friends.
With Jeanine Serralles as Ruth, she is supported by a strong ensemble cast; Jo Garcia-Reger as Dadie, Jennifer Naimo as Tessa, Samuela Strickland as Ed, and Sally Wingert as Marje.
It is running through September in San Diego, California.