Katherine Yacko (L) and Roxanne Fay, who star in ‘Love Bird,’ happening at The Off-Central Players in St. Petersburg, Florida April 10-19, 2025. Credit: c/o The Off-Central Players

K. T. Peterson’s “Love Bird,” opening Thursday, April 10 at The Off-Central, is a play unlike anything you may have seen before, yet it might remind you of anything from rom-coms to “Waiting for Godot.” Its two characters, Nigel and Norman, are birds—although the playwright encourages the actors to be “as non-birdlike as possible.” And one of the birds has fallen in love—with piles of garbage.

Like another play about avian amours, the penguin romance “Birds of a Feather” (seen hereabouts at Stageworks and Gulfport Community Players), “Love Bird” was inspired by a true story. The headline that caught Peterson’s eye in Feb. 2, 2018 read, “Nigel, the World’s Loneliest Bird, Dies Next to the Cement Decoy He Loved.”

Wildlife officials had tried to create a sanctuary for gannets like Nigel by placing 80 lifelike cement decoys of the birds on a desolate island off the coast of New Zealand. But Nigel was the only gannet who fell for the ruse, and when he fell, he really fell—for one of the decoys. He built a nest for it, groomed its concrete feathers, and died by its side.
Peterson’s play takes off from that bittersweet anecdote to create a truly original world. Nigel‘s love objects are detritus, not decoys, and when Norman shows up Nigel must contend with the challenge of conversing with another creature that can actually talk back, and one that can love him back, too.

Peterson stipulates that her characters, despite their masculine monikers, can be played by actors of any gender. At the Off-Central, the two roles are being taken by Roxanne Fay and Katherine Yacko, with direction by Ami Sallee. This multi-talented trio has acted together before, including shows at Jobsite and Stageworks, and Yacko directed Fay in her one-woman show, “Thrice to Mine.”

Fay discovered “Love Bird,” which prior to Off-Central had received just one professional production in Indianapolis, and brought it to the attention of Off-Central Producing Artistic Director Ward Smith.

“I love the tone of it, the hopefulness of it,” said Fay during a recent pre-rehearsal interview with Yacko. “It’s just a really sweet story and yet has pretty deep themes and also is super funny. And you get to be a bird, so what the hell?”

“Don’t let yourself be blind to what is there because you have in your head what should be there.”

There’ll intentionally be no attempt to make the actors look like birds (“No feathers!” declared Fay). But Peterson’s language sometimes jumps about in skittery, birdlike fashion that’s particularly evident when Nigel addresses his two imaginary lovers (the elusive Saundra and the more forthcoming Jessica) in what are essentially extended monologues.

Then, what Fay calls Nigel’s “rich non-life” is shattered when he has to deal with the arrival of a living, breathing and very chatty visitor. And as Norman tries in his bumbling, affable way to get through to Nigel, a kind of push-me/pull-you love story develops.

The play’s elements may sound basic—two characters on an island—but the technical challenges are manifold. Just the island’s changing weather (wind, water, thunder) will pose a challenge to the Off-Central’s special effects whiz Michael Horn.
And then there are those garbage creatures. Fortuitously, Ami Sallee teaches stagecraft at HCC, and her class is building Saundra and Jessica. (At press time, the actors hadn’t seen them yet. “It’ll be a surprise to us, too!” laughed Yacko.)
In Peterson’s synopsis, she says she’s exploring “the meaning of devotion in a single-use society.”

“We throw things away, including people,” said Fay. “Because it’s inconvenient or we don’t need it anymore. We’re very quick to dispose of anything that requires any effort.”

Ultimately, the play is about the rewards of making that effort.

“Don’t let yourself be blind to what is there,” said Fay, “because you have in your head what should be there.”

Yacko hopes that people come away with the message that love knows no gender and love knows no species, but it’s fine if they just come to laugh.

“If you just want to be entertained, this is the show for you. If you want a little more of a message, this is also the show for you. You really can’t lose.”

Tickets to see “Love Bird” at The Off-Central Players in St. Petersburg, playing select nights from April 10-19 are still available and start at $20. A $10 pay-what-you-can performance happens on Wednesday, April 16.

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This article appears in Apr 3-9, 2025.