There are certain events that I’ve come to think of as marking summertime in New York City: the popping-up of open-air performances, the explosion of greenmarkets, the descent of sweaty tourists.  However there’s one event in particular that I look forward to with the heart-consuming eagerness of a child.  It’s when the Indian mangoes arrive at Patel Brothers market in Jackson Heights.

The Alphonso mango from western India is regarded as the most prized mango on Earth.  Alphonsos are different from the larger, more familiar Latin American mangoes with red, green, and yellow skins; and they’re different from the yellow kidney-shaped mangoes of Southeast Asia.  The Alphonso is compact and round, with smooth, yellow and red skin. It smells sweet and faintly floral, and when you cut one open it reveals bright, almost neon-orange flesh.  It tastes, in varying degrees, like honey and flowers, underlined by an intense mango fruitiness that renders it estranged from its cousins.

In our play Jackson Heights, 3 AM, I like to think that the mango which lovelorn Devaj gives the equally lovelorn Adela is an Alphonso mango.  His delivery of the precious fruit, in place of words (which are useless anyway, as neither character speaks the other’s language), is an act of poetry.  It’s a gift that represents affection, generosity, and even cultural exchange.  It is with this same spirit that Jackson Heights, 3 AM was created and developed.

Just as the 2011 summer was beginning, and just as the first shipment of Alphonsos were coming in, Devaj and Adela first appeared on the page.  A line that Devaj spoke to Adela back then (which has long since been cut) is ‘It should always be mango season for you.’ In the cold grip of winter, watching the play during opening weekend brought me a bit of mango season.  And it makes me look ahead to next summer, when the Alphonsos come around again.

When I pass the three taco trucks parked right outside of the station I think about how exciting it’s been to be a part of this process. To have been a part of the first two installments of the JH trilogy: 167 Tongues, and You are now the owner of this suitcase, and to now be involved in the genesis of the final piece of the puzzle. My salivary glands are on overdrive with the notion that we’ll be diving into the darker side of the area. As I walk down Roosevelt before truing onto 81st St. my eyes are peeled, is that a brothel? How about that one? I tell myself, it’s the middle of a Saturday afternoon, and the chances of seeing something are slim, but still, I scan.

So many faces. There are so many interesting face on my walk from the subway to the Renaissance School for rehearsal. What are your stories? How did you come here? What does Jackson Heights mean to you?

I get to the school, sit in my blue chair, and as the meeting starts, as the new pages the writers have brought in are read, I think, “Holy shit,” can I say shit?… I think, “Holy smokes, this is great. These stories belong to those faces. The faces I just saw coming here. I mean maybe not the very same faces, this isn’t an autobiographical play. But it could be! The material is so rooted in the reality of the lives of the faces that live in this neighborhood.”

We talk story, we talk possible development ideas, and there is one idea in particular that, upon imagining it, invokes and instant visceral reaction; chokes me up and brings tears to my eyes. It was so satisfyingly tragic. Really beautiful. I cross my inner fingers and toes, because I want so badly for this idea to make it into the play.

I wonder, aloud, about my role as an actor in this process. I just can’t wait to get on my feet and explore some of these stories, these ideas, these faces. Jackson Heights may not be everybody’s ‘Happiest place on Earth,’ but because so much of my creative life has been expressed here over the last 2 years, it is surely becoming one of mine.