Lily makes friends with Zachary (Noah Thomas) who works with the bees.  We learn about the Boatwright sisters, May who lost her twin April and who suffers from depression, and June who speaks roughly to Lily and whom the history teacher Neil (Tarinn Calendar) often proposes marriage to.  

The title song, “The Secret Life of Bees” is a triumph.  Duncan Sheik’s score is varied with influences from soul and gospel choirs, blue grass and romantic ballads for Lily and Zach.  The First Act ends with August’s rousing “Our Lady of Chains” where she affirms “She’ll be a slave no more”.  In the 1960s America is witnessing the Civil Rights Movement and this musical refers to the murder by the Klu Klux Klan of three Civil Rights Workers in Mississippi.

In Act Two there is excitement as film star Jack Palance visits Tiburon with his African American girlfriend.  There are happy revelations about Lily’s mother.  Rosaleen will get to vote and the Boatwrights will protect Lily from police looking for her and her dreadful father.  There is a lovely set by Soutra Gilmour with cornfields in the background and jars of honey, hives and boxes of peaches stored on wooden benches.   The choreography by Shelley Maxwell is limited and natural in real situations where the women dance in celebration but this show is outstanding for beautiful tunes sung by brilliant voices from the whole cast, and the eight piece band. 

The Secret Life of Bees is a charming piece, beyond the cruelty,  as soft and as sweet as a jar of honey.  Let us hope it will find a further life.