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History Theatre's 'Watermelon Hill' portrays the humor and pain of young pregnancy

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The play "Watermelon Hill" starts its season at the History Theatre this weekend. The author, Lily Baber Coyle, spoke with MPR News host Tom Weber about the inspiration behind the play.

Starting in the 1940s the play tells the story of three teenage girls who were sent away to the Catholic Infant Home located in St. Paul's Cathedral Hill neighborhood. There, pregnant and unmarried girls were once sent to have their children and then put them up for adoption.

Coyle said she wrote her first draft, became pregnant, and then started over. The day after she delivered her play, she delivered her daughter. She described the play as both funny and painful, "there's a lot of humor when a lot of pregnant women are trapped in a house with a lot of nuns."