She was 19 in March 2022 when she auditioned for “Les Misérables” and flew to New York City to sing for casting directors without any intention of trying out for a lead. 

“But I was told that I ‘looked like Fantine’ that day, whatever that means,” Dortch said, in an interview.” They asked me if I knew ‘I Dreamed a Dream.’ “

Yes, she said. She knew “I Dreamed a Dream” — one of the most recognizable theater songs of all time, sung by one of the genre’s most coveted characters — and knew it well. She sang, nailed it, started rehearsals that August. She was on the road by October.  

Dortch, the 22-year-old former musical theater major, plays Fantine in the national Broadway tour of “Les Misérables,” which opens Tuesday at Chrysler Hall in Norfolk and runs through Sunday.

Based on Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel set during the French Revolution, the show tells the fictional story of Jean Valjean, a convict on the run after breaking parole. In his new life, as a factory owner and mayor, he agrees to be the guardian of a young girl after her mother, Fantine, dies. Fantine — portrayed by Anne Hathaway in the 2012 film adaptation — is a young woman who has been forced into prostitution after backstabbers get her fired from her job at the factory.

“She’s resilient, very persistent, and she loves her child more than anything,” Dortch said.

“And she has the best song in the show — but,” she added, “I might be biased.”

Fantine sings “I Dreamed a Dream” in the first act. Even after two years and more than 650 performances, Dortch sings it as heart-wrenchingly as possible every time she’s on stage.

“It’s so true that each show is someone’s first experience with theater or somebody’s first experience with ‘Les Miz,’ and I can remember those exact first moments for myself,” she said, about formative experiences watching theater, “and how much they inspired me and meant for me, and especially as a person of color too — what that can mean for young artists of color who are coming to see the shows.”

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

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If you go

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Chrysler Hall, 215 St. Paul’s Blvd., Norfolk

Tickets: Start at $40

Details: sevenvenues.com

The source of a letter — written in 1945 by a serviceman stationed in Hampton Roads and found last month in Florida — has been identified.

Mike Meyer, 65, lives in Safety Harbor, Florida, and said he put the letter in the bottle and sent it out to sea earlier this year.

Meyer’s father was born in 1929 and was too young to join the military until the end of World War II but often wrote and received letters from older friends who’d left their Illinois hometown to enlist. One buddy, Jim Peters, wrote to Meyer’s father, Leroy, on March 4, 1945. The message was jotted in cursive underneath the letterhead “United States Navy, Amphibious Training Base, Little Creek, Virginia.”

That letter and bottle were found on the side of a Safety Harbor road last month by Suzanne Flament-Smith amid storm debris after Hurricane Debby. It had been washed back ashore not far from where it was let go.

The bottle also contained some sand, a bullet casing and a circular hunk of metal that Flament-Smith described as “about the size of a Whopper candy.” She quickly took to social media to share her discovery and a question: Where had it come from?

The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post and dozens of other news outlets wrote or carried stories about the curiosity.

“I didn’t think it was that big a deal,” Meyer told The Pilot about the fuss over his dad’s old letter.

“I guess the first thing is …” he said, and then he unraveled the mystery. Leroy Meyer stored many of his wartime correspondences in a box that was passed down to his children after he died in 2001. The letters were stored at his daughter’s home until Mike got them several years ago.

Mike Meyer read and reread his father’s letters. Some had been sent from soldiers overseas. One was from a girlfriend working in a factory that made Lockheed P-38 Lightning airplanes. He came to consider them historical documents and a friend’s recent retirement sparked an idea of how to share them with the world.

“She had sold her business and was throwing away some rare inventory,” he said. “She had all these Message-in-a-Bottle kits.”

Keeping his 10 favorites, he put 40 of his dad’s letters into the kits — one letter per bottle — and this spring began launching them, a few at a time, several times a week, watching through a pair of binoculars as they floated out on the tide.

“I usually put something shiny in there so they were more likely to be seen.”

He put a shell casing and a ball bearing in a bottle on April 16 along with the March 4, 1945 letter.

“I just turned it loose.”

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

Pharrell has Something in the Water at the Oceanfront.

And now another member of Hampton Roads’ hip-hop royalty has his own thing, this time in the heart of downtown Norfolk.

The inaugural Cousinz Festival, a one-day music fest co-founded by artist Terrence “Pusha T” Thornton, will take over Scope plaza and Scope on Saturday.

The shows start in the early afternoon with VIP entry starting at 1 p.m. and the main gates opening at 2. DJs will perform through the afternoon on the plaza; those events conclude with a 6 p.m. set by hitmaker Jermaine Dupri, who’s collaborated with Mariah Carey, Destiny’s Child and Usher.

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Scope plaza performances

• Norfolk State University Band, 1:45 p.m.
• DJ DC, 2 p.m.
• Izzy the DJ, 3 p.m.
• DJ Envy, 4 p.m.
• JAE Murphy, 5 p.m.
• Jermaine Dupri, 6 p.m.

Dupri, a rapper and producer, has been a music industry mover and shaker since the early 1990s, when he helped write rap duo Kris Kross’s single “Jump,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. He founded So So Def Recording.

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Scope arena performances

• Art of Noise RVA, 6:30 p.m.
• Lion Babe, 8 p.m.
• Larry June, 9 p.m.
• Erykah Badu, 10:15 p.m.

Badu is the festival’s second headliner. She’s known for her soaring and emotionally stirring vocal range; The New Yorker magazine once called her the “Godmother of Soul.”

Her song “Bag Lady” reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2000, and two years later, “Love Of My Life (An Ode To Hip Hop),” featuring Common peaked at No. 6.

Pusha T found commercial success in the early 2000s as half of the duo Clipse after signing to Pharrell Williams’ Star Trak Entertainment record label.

He called Badu “one of the queens of R&B”  and said it was “only right” to have an artist of her stature, and with such a strong fan base, headline the festival’s debut.

He co-founded the Cousinz Festival with his longtime friend and musical collaborator Nathaniel “Fam-Lay” Johnson and Antonio Dowe. Johnson, a former recording artist who lives in Chesapeake, and Dowe, a music management and marketing professional based in Norfolk, previously founded the R&B Block Party. It played its first show in Norfolk in 2022 and has been held 14 times locally and at venues across the country.

The Cousinz Festival, they said, is essentially an expanded version of the Block Party that they hope will embody the laid-back atmosphere of a “large cookout” at a “family reunion.”

“The name Cousinz is just a term of endearment to make sure our 757 community and beyond knows that this is a family affair,” Dowe said.

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

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If you go

When: 1:45 p.m. Saturday

Where: Scope, 201 E. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk

Tickets: Start at $40

Details: cousinzfestival.com

The American public clamored for fresh reports about the latest death tolls in the Virginia port cities, where yellow fever struck with a 33% mortality rate.

The country was horrified by the devastation, now chronicled in a new book, “The Fever: The Most Fatal Plague in American History,” by Lon Wagner.

Wagner, who lives in Roanoke, documents how yellow fever silenced the bustling streets of two flourishing cities and forever altered the trajectory of Hampton Roads.

“Norfolk and Portsmouth both lost key people who would have been leaders for those cities for decades to come,” he said in an interview. “So it makes you wonder how it affected the fate of these two places at a key time of growth, when they were really building.”

On Thursday, Wagner will give a talk at Prince Books in Norfolk about the book, which began as a 14-part series he wrote as a reporter for The Virginian-Pilot in 2005. The book is a culmination of years of research, collecting and cataloguing historical accounts found in 1800s newspapers, personal stories preserved in diaries, and patient histories recorded during the 100-day epidemic by the Portsmouth Medical Center.

Wagner begins his narrative in the hold of the cargo ship Benjamin Franklin. The vessel, transporting coffee, fruit, sugar and passengers to New York City, docked at the Caribbean island of St. Thomas in May 1855 amid an outbreak of yellow fever there.

Yellow fever is believed to have originated in Africa and spread around the globe on board ships — “a curse” of the “international slave trade” — Wagner writes.

The illness begins with headache, muscle pain, vomiting and a fever before attacking vital organs. It shuts down the liver and, Wagner writes, the skin “turns an ashen yellow.”

Though the crew showed signs of illness, he writes, the captain of the Benjamin Franklin departed the Caribbean port for the United States.

When the ship stopped for repairs in Hampton Roads that June, he lied to health officers about conditions aboard, and the virus was released first into Portsmouth.

“The fever spread like a slow gas leak,” Wagner writes.

It had been 29 years since the last yellow fever outbreak in Hampton Roads, and almost no one here had immunity. When a mosquito that carries the virus bites a human, the human becomes a carrier and passes it to the next mosquito that bites — on and on it goes.

In Norfolk, people reported falling ill as early as July 16.

Norfolk and Portsmouth residents who could afford to flee did — about 75% of the population. The people who were left, the poor and enslaved, suffered the most.

Of the roughly 6,000 people unable to flee Norfolk, around 2,100 died. Of the 3,000 Portsmouth residents who stayed, around 1,000 died. Wagner could not find another U.S. epidemic with as high a mortality rate. Not since the Black Plague in 1300s Europe had a disease death rate been so terrible.

The Fever, Chapter 1: A killer sails into port

Wagner paints a picture of misery through the plight of his book’s characters — reconstructing personalities, based on archived letters and other writings — such as civic leaders, doctors, nurses and a Presbyterian minister, George Armstrong:

“The moment Armstrong stepped off the ferry in Portsmouth, he stopped in his tracks. An apocalyptic scene lay before him … The fleeing residents had dumped food, entrails, leftover milk and anything and everything else that was perishable at the edge of their properties. It hadn’t rained since the mass exodus, so the detritus lay rotting in the summer sun.”

But Wagner also gives readers heroes such as 26-year-old Annie M. Andrews, who traveled from Syracuse, New York, into “the teeth of calamity” to help nurse the sick.

“Though the work was grim, they wanted to get started right away.”

Read the 2005 series.

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

___

If you go

Lon Wagner will discuss “The Fever” and why the death toll of this epidemic was far higher than those of better-known epidemics.

When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday

Where: Prince Books, 109 E. Main St., Norfolk

Tickets: Free

Details: 757-623-9223, prince-books.com

For her stroll, she picked Bayshore Boulevard. The road runs along the water in Safety Harbor, about 5 miles outside of Tampa. Typically a scenic spot, it was not Aug. 7.

Flament-Smith found it littered with debris brought ashore by Hurricane Debby. Discarded cans, old sunscreen and waterlogged gunk lay in heaps.

Flament-Smith began filling trash bags, then spotted a peculiarity: An old-timey and weatherworn but clear and corked bottle amid the garbage. 

She leaned in and looked through the glass.

Oh wow, she thought, I think I’ve found something special!

She had. It was a message in a bottle, handwritten under the letterhead “United States Navy, Amphibious Training Base, Little Creek, Virginia.” The date on the letter: “3/4/1945.”

But Flament-Smith didn’t open it immediately. She waited, picked up her daughter, drove home for her husband to see and FaceTimed her son at Furman University before pulling the cork.

“Surprisingly, there was no smell,” she recalled in an interview.

Inside the bottle, the piece of paper was folded in thirds. With it were three other objects.

There was an empty bullet casing with no identifying markings or an engraved caliber.

A circular hunk of metal, the size of a bubblegum ball, rolled around the bottom.

And a thin piece of wood, similar to a coffee stirrer, leaned against the neck of the bottle.

Flament-Smith and her family tried to use the piece of wood to remove the letter from the bottle, gave up, broke the bottle and, reading the letter, were shocked by its date: March 1945.

In photos, the letter appears to have been written with a fountain pen. Fading, the uneven scrawl and occasional misspellings make parts of it hard to read.

But it began, “Dear Lee,”

“Recieved your letter yesterday, was glad to hear from you. So you got a little lit up the other day. Well that is a every day thing around here they have a bar and they have pretty good beer.”

“Bud,” the serviceman writes. Schlitz, perhaps. And “old fiful, Pale Ail.”  

“I get happy every night I’m on the base.”

The base — now known as Little Creek — was new, established in the early 1940s on the southern shore of the Chesapeake Bay as a training ground for amphibious craft and assault tactics. Sailors, soldiers and Marines trained there, a few hundred thousand of them, the Navy says, some ending up at Normandy.

The letter writer explains he’s now “in Radio School” before asking his friend about a liaison and, then, “Who is your dream girl now.”

“Well Lee,” he continues, “I have to fall out for school now but will write again to morrow, and tell you how I made out in Norfolk tonigh.”

He explains: “Boy I got a little Red haid boy she is all right.”

He closes: “Your pal, …”

The signature is difficult to discern.

“Jim,” perhaps.

Whether the letter has been afloat for nearly 80 years or was placed in the bottle long after it was written, the message reveals: Some topics of conversation, between old friends, are eternal.

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

“Very nice slope,” he said. “Very easy.”

He walked inside the building through a stylish new doorway, looked up at the open pipes and ductwork crisscrossing the lobby’s high ceiling and took in the industrial-style interior design.

“It smells new,” he said. “New smell. I love it.”

A renovation and expansion of the Perry Glass Studio is nearing completion, and this week, Alexander got a first look at the new facilities.

The mayor’s tour guide, Glass Studio Director Robin Rogers, pointed to a prominent spot on the wall, immediately behind a reception desk, where the names of donors will be displayed. Alexander glanced in its direction and gave an acknowledging nod.

The city committed $15 million over 10 years to help fund land acquisition and construction costs for the project, contributing to a museum-led $55 million capital campaign. Of that, roughly $30 million went toward construction. About $15 million will be used to endow future operational costs, according to Chrysler Museum officials.

Next door to the Chrysler Museum, the original Perry Glass Studio opened in 2011. It provided workspaces for artists as well as glassmaking demonstrations and classes. And it’s popularity has grown. As early as 2015, museum leadership began discussing expanding the space to meet demand.

The current project broke ground last year and has expanded the studio from 9,000 to 34,0000 square feet. Classes will begin Sept. 12 inside the studio’s new sections.

A renovation of the building’s older sections is expected to be complete early next year, with an official grand opening celebration scheduled for March.

Once fully complete, the Perry Glass Studio will have more than doubled its capacity for housing and creating art.

There will be 14 flameworking workstations where artists can use stationary torches to make small objects such as beads or pendants over open flames.

Artists will be able to create larger pieces in nine workstations devoted to hot glass.

A new flat glass workspace will allow them to create stained glass artworks, and a portion of the studio will be dedicated to the fabrication of neon, lit glass — the kind one might find blinking outside or advertising a beer inside at a dive-y bar.

On Thursday, Alexander was led into one of the new classrooms.

“That’s lit,” he said. “That’s good.”

Next on the tour was the studio’s recently constructed performance space. The large rectangular room had 45-foot ceilings, second-floor mezzanines and a balcony with 90 fixed seats. The mayor was told an additional 110 seats could be moved onto a first-floor seating area, from where audiences will watch concerts and dramatic productions that’ll incorporate the spectacles of glassmaking.

“Everybody, try out the chairs,” Rogers said, leading the tour.

Alexander walked some stairs to the balcony and plopped onto the red cushion of a fixed seat.

“Pat!” he called to City Manager Patrick Roberts. “Pat, they are very comfortable.”

A correction was made on Aug. 19, 2014: Because of incorrect information provided to The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press, an earlier version of this article misstated the square footage of the expanded Perry Glass Studio and a type of artwork that artists will create there. The Perry Glass Studio will be expanded to 34,0000 square feet, and a new flat glass workspace will allow them to create stained glass artwork.

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

Every week, they get close to 15 million audio and video streams.

And despite having formed nearly 50 years ago, they still consistently reach an audience exceeding 80 million radio listeners each month.

Foreigner is one of the most popular rock acts in the world and is coming to Virginia Beach — perhaps, for the last time.

The band will play at the Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater in Virginia Beach on Aug. 20 as part of its “The Historic Farewell Tour.”

Rock-and-roller John Waite — whose 1984 single “Missing You” peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — will open the show and will be followed by the rock band Styx, before Foreigner takes over the stage and closes the night.

“People should expect a lot of great tunes that they already know performed at high energy with a crowd singing on their feet; it’s always an exciting, sort of festive, atmosphere,” said Michael Bluestein, the band’s keyboardist.

In an interview, Bluestein, who joined Foreigner in 2008, described the band’s farewell tour as bittersweet.

He’ll miss the music, but after 16 years of averaging 80 to 100 concerts per year, Bluestein added, he and his bandmates are looking forward to some respite from constant touring.

“We’re not disappearing,” he added, saying the band still plans on playing together. “But it’s just going to be a lot less.”

Foreigner was formed in 1976 by three Americans and three Brits, and their 1977 self-titled album produced the band’s first hits with “Feels Like the First Time” and “Cold As Ice.”

Foreigner remained popular through the 1970s and 80s, releasing well-known songs such as “Hot Blooded,” “Blue Morning, Blue Day” and “I Want To Know What Love Is.”

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

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If you go

When: 7 p.m. Aug 20

Where: Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach, 3550 Cellar Door Way, Virginia Beach

Cost: Start at $22

Details: foreigneronline.com

In Virginia Beach, one swam.

Grace Sherwood, Hampton Roads’ most famous “witch,” has spawned innumerable legends since her death in 1740, and Virginia Beach native Scott Moore has attempted to collect them all in his new book, “The Witch of Pungo: Grace Sherwood in Virginia History and Legend.”

Moore draws from primary source documents to provide an account of Sherwood’s life, community and interactions with her accusers — having found, he has said, materials unreported by other researchers. He also analyzed the many fantastical yarns that developed after her death to explore her legacy, now ingrained into the cultural fabric of his hometown.

Moore, 44, is a history professor at Eastern Connecticut State University whose research focuses on Central European nationalism, identity and how historical memory shapes communities, he said.

“And, obviously, the cultural legacy of Grace Sherwood, I’ve always found it really interesting!”

Like many Hampton Roads kids, Moore learned the basics of Sherwood at a young age. In the early 1700s, residents of Princess Anne County grew suspicious of Sherwood. For several years, rumors abounded that the widowed mother of three was the cause of crop failures and livestock deaths. Some whispered that the 47-year-old midwife willed storms at her pleasure. Finally, in 1706, she was officially accused of being a witch.

Authorities ordered her bound and “ducked” (or, in modern parlance, “dunked”) in the Lynnhaven River — near what is now known as Witchduck Point. The theory went like this: If Sherwood sank, she was innocent. If she managed to float, she must’ve used magic to survive.

Yet Sherwood untied herself, surfaced and was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, and Witchduck Road later received its name.

The first of three sections in Moore’s book reconstructs Sherwood’s story using historical documents and places it in the wider context of witch trials in North America and Europe. The second and third parts discuss the histories of witch trials and how Sherwood has been remembered in Virginia Beach. Each year, for example, an honoree “Witch of Pungo” was named at the Pungo Strawberry Festival.

Moore’s goal was to write a book that would appeal to readers outside of academia, he said. “The Witch of Pungo” is published by the University of Virginia Press.

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

Several of the tree’s branches were shorn close to its trunk and residents are concerned it is damaged. Well-wishers gathered to heal it.

Norfolk’s public works department recently pruned trees in the Larchmont neighborhood for a project, including the Fairy Tree — which has brought a bit of magic into people’s lives since the pandemic.

Eight people stood in a circle around the crape myrtle and on the sidewalk, ready to send it good vibes and renewed positive energy.

Lisa Suhay, who lives near the tree, handed out laminated pieces of paper with a masthead reading “BELIEVER,” a picture of a fairy and the words to a healing rite Branton read aloud.

“I cleanse myself and this grove with light and loving energy … This space is now replenished, reborn, and renewed with hope, kindness, love and community.”

The crape myrtle became the Fairy Tree in 2020 when Suhay placed a small sign inviting children to write letters to the fairies who lived in it. Ever since, thousands of children visit the tree each year, and the fairies always reply to the kids’ letters, usually within 24 hours, with handwritten notes. The Library of Congress named the crape myrtle a “Witness Tree” to the events of the pandemic.

“The secret to life is to not take yourself too seriously,” Suhay said after the ceremony. “Enjoy the journey. Try crazy new things and when it’s all over you know that you never hesitated to live every minute to its fullest.”

After hearing about the pruning, dozens of children have visited the Fairy Tree. Some have hugged its bark. Many have left gifts for the fairies — cookies, sugar packets, drawings, Legos and flowers —  at the tree’s roots.

“I think people really relate to the tree in a weird way,” Suhay said. “Or, maybe not so weird. I think they feel we keep cutting back on the good stuff, sacrificing positivity for progress.”

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

Stop! Don’t you know what this tree is, she asked. What? Why are you doing this?

A man replied, she said, that he was just doing his job.

“I tried to explain to them it was a fairy tree,” Suhay said. “And they laughed at me.”

But, she wasn’t joking. The “Fairy Tree” at 1651 Longwood Drive — recognized by the Library of Congress — is where thousands of children every year write and leave letters addressed to the fairies who live in it, and the fairies always reply, usually within 24 hours, with handwritten notes. Sometimes, the fairies write upwards of 15 replies a night. It’s a lot of work, but their tree has become immensely popular.

Now, Suhay is concerned about the health of the Fairy Tree. Multiple limbs were removed by a tree trimming company subcontracted through the city’s Public Works department for a project. Neighborhood residents shared their frustration and sadness on social media about the pruning.

“Now with everything happening in this world, you don’t cut back on magic,” Suhay said. “You don’t cut back on the hopes of children, and they did.”

The Fairy Tree was born in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing protocols, stay-at-home orders and closings of schools, playgrounds and libraries. The Little Free Library in front of Suhay’s home became a popular destination for neighborhood children. The library box was shaped like a miniature house, and on one particular visit, 6-year-old Ellie Tomberlin walked past the box and right up to Suhay’s door, knocked and asked Suhay if fairies lived in the library house. The girl was assured: Yes, of course, they do.

“In fact,” Suhay told the girl, “they have come back to our world after a long absence to help us all find our happy thoughts that have been lost during the lockdowns.”

A few days later, Suhay, the author of 10 children’s books and a journalist who has written for The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor, placed a “fairy door” on the crape myrtle, located next to the Little Free Library, with an accompanying message that invited people to write to the sprites in the tree.

In their first 10 months, the fairies received and replied to over 2,000 letters from children and adults; the tree became a favorite spot for Old Dominion University students who were suffering because of the isolation, and ultimately, the Fairy Tree helped save lives. Whenever the fairies received a suicide note, Suhay immediately contacted authorities. One former ODU student, who wrote such a letter, recently contacted Suhay.

“She said that she had gotten help and gone to counseling and was married now and about to have her first child and wanted to thank me.”

The Library of Congress named the crape myrtle a “Witness Tree” to the events of the pandemic, describing its importance as part of a Historic America Landscapes Survey: ” … the Fairy Tree has been both a witness and national source of comfort … The tree stopped an emotional bullet for thousands of children and adults … ”

But the letters to fairies did not end with the pandemic. Suhay was invited to talk about the tree on the popular “Kelly Clarkson Show” in 2022.

The fairies still reply to an average of 1,000 letters a year. The gardens surrounding Suhay’s home are transformed into an enchanted township filled with “fairyminiums” including a beehive structure where the fairy “Bee-Yonce” lives. The elf king “Eyal” rules over his people’s mushroom homes in the flowerbeds, and The Art Fairy curates a museum displaying drawings and paintings by children. Carved stone trolls and plastic dragons guard the realm because, Suhay said, “The boys were always talking about dragons; so, we got some for them.”

But, on this recent Monday, all the fairy homes were dusted by the debris of fallen limbs.

According to the city, a work order was issued June 21 to mill and pave Woodbury Avenue, Longwood Drive and Melrose Parkway and trimming is performed to prevent the machines from hitting tree branches. The company is accredited by the Tree Care Industry Association and Certified Tree Safety Professional with certified, staff arborists and trained personnel.

“All trees were trimmed according to standards for trimming trees,” the city stated, in an email to The Pilot.

However, Suhay contends the trimming went too far and has caused potential damage to the crape myrtles. Many limbs were cut 5 feet beyond the street curb. One limb on the Fairy Tree was cut to the trunk. According to a Virginia Cooperative Extension pruning guide, crape myrtles should be pruned in late winter or early spring because they are summer-blooming trees. The Fairy Tree was in bloom when cut, and Suhay said that she didn’t see an arborist on-site and wants the city to ensure one will be present for future pruning.

“My main thing is that I don’t want this to happen again, not just to the Fairy Tree but all of the crape myrtles,” she said. In the 1930s, more than 40,000 crape myrtles were planted in Norfolk to turn the city into the Crape Myrtle Capital of the World.

“They are such important trees to our city. People move here just because they love the way they look.”

Norfolk City Forester Steven Traylor did not respond to interview requests.

“If you think the Lorax was upset, then I’d say Fairy Queen Lysandra, who’s queen of all the Fae, is miffed,” Suhay said. “And I’d be the one to know.”

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com