Maplewood Politics Inspire a Play

In May of 2022, the revelation that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade left the nation reeling and dominated headlines. Galvanized Maplewood activists rose up and vowed to never stop fighting — to shut down a neighborhood donut shop after it made a peanut allergy joke.

As the nation and world engages in an epic battle between right and left, within the 1 1/2 square miles that make up the inner-ring suburb of Maplewood, the 8,000 residents are witnessing a hyper-local and far more personal war between fringe left versus left-of-center. The latter camp defines the former as militant, humorless and hysterical, and nobody is more vocal about that assessment than playwright Donald Miller, a 59-year-old gay, married father who has voted (and often campaigned) for every Democrat since Bill Clinton, but is essentially Ted Cruz in the eyes of some of his younger progressive neighbors.

I met the wildly irreverent Miller about a decade ago, when we both wrote for the LGBTQ magazine Vital Voice. Until 2017, he appeared to live a relatively drama-free life in upscale Richmond Heights, but when his family moved five minutes east, lured by a large circa-1900 Victorian on one of Maplewood’s idyllic tree-lined streets, Miller’s sometimes irritated, oftentimes comical Facebook posts described constant neighborhood dramas.

“Once I had been friended by some members of the Maplewood community, including neighbors and other parents, I noticed there seemed to be this hyper rigidity that I found off-putting. It really came to the forefront during the 2021 mayoral and school board races, and the vitriol thrown around in both of those races was just staggering,” Miller says, discussing how local activists painted the former moderate mayor — Barry Greenberg, a Jewish father of a Black son — as a racist and referred to anyone who wanted to resume inschool learning as “kid killers.”

“You would have thought it was the political race to end all political races, given the hyper melodrama,” Miller says. “Some acted as if the mayoral race was between David Duke and

Mother Teresa. It was crazy.”

While Maplewood prides itself on its diversity, Miller and others who agreed to speak with me on background say the vitriol and hysterics center around less than a dozen straight white 30-somethings with kids.

The story is also very St. Louis in how neighborhood-specific the saga is. Just lines on a map separate Maplewood from the city, Richmond Heights or Clayton. Yet there is very little cultural spillover. When a local woman who’d been browbeaten out of a mom’s group she founded agreed to discuss her observations and experiences, we arranged a clandestine meeting where nobody would know her: One mile east of Maplewood in El Paisano.

“I think Don’s play is going to humorously skewer the archetype of the white, comfortable, upper-middleclass urban housewife who expresses her activism by carefully curated social media posts, hyperlinks, paywall articles and online outrage. And maybe the occasional crocheted beanie,” she says after sharing the story of how she was labeled every derogatory term under the sun for not making her parenting group more political.

Set in a community garden, Miller’s latest play centers upon “a performative community activist” who attempts to manipulate others under the guise of equity and feminism.

“From the Garden is political satire that focuses on a growing divide within the Democratic Party between old-school liberals and the new strain of überleft progressives,” Miller says. “While it’s written largely for comedic effect, the conflict at the core of the story is very real and serious. It examines how, in some cases, identity politics can be not just rigid and unproductive but downright toxic.”

Shortly after the local donut shop’s controversial peanut allergy post, it promoted a coconut donut. Miller commented, “How dare you? Thousands are killed each year from falling coconuts!”

Tickets for From the Garden, which runs May 5 to 7 at the Chapel (6238 Alexander Drive, 314-529-1581), are available through eventbrite.