Miss Dorothy Simple, proprietor of the Simple Notions Shop in Primanproper, Mass., has barricaded her house and heart behind a double row of petunias. Today, however, she has woken up to find every single petunia crushed by the footprints of a size-eleven-D shoe. When the perpetrator, a Young Man, arrives to confess his crime, he comes on a mission to alert Miss Dorothy to the "miraculous accident of being alive." Armed with poetry, seeds for wild roses, and a business card from "LIFE, INCORPORATED," the Young Man endeavors to convince Miss Dorothy of the tremendous inspiration that lies beyond what one can buy or sell in a shop with four walls.
A part of the collection The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays.
The Case of the Crushed Petunias premiered at the Karamu Theatre in Cleveland, OH in February 1957 under the direction of Reuben Silver.