Synopsis:

Does growing up have to mean giving up? 

La Lumiere du Soleil (Sunshine), a thirty minute serialized dramedy, answers this question by exploring the complex relationship of three generations of Thompson women and how the youngest of all discovers the truth about what it means to dream, explore, and accept no boundaries. 

Soleil Thompson (9 y/o) lives in a rural east Texas town that has been the home of every grand-this or great-that she’s ever known.  She is reared by her mother, Bernice (30s) and her great aunt, Auntie Ri (late 50s).  Auntie Ri is the matriarch of their little family, and she runs a tight ship, leaving little room for the kind of play and joy necessary to keep up with young Soleil.  A force of raw curiosity, Soleil resonates with the kind of energy most of us recall with a sigh of loss and fondness…to be nine years old again! 

One day, after being punished yet again for being too loud, too playful, in general…too much…Soleil discovers a hidden treasure buried deep under a cottonwood tree at the edge of the Thompson lot.  Before she can fully uncover the breadth of her find, she is frightened away by the menacing town recluse, Junior Sparks (20s).  Soleil runs back home, only to find Auntie Ri plotting to put her to work with Bernice as a washgirl, determined to instill in her some discipline and maturity.  When Bernice agrees, Soleil knows she must take drastic action or be doomed to a life without adventure and filled with monotony like her mother’s and her aunt’s.  But, like the other Thompson women, Soleil is afraid.  When night falls and the house is fast asleep, Soleil decides to confront her fears by stealing the treasure back from Junior Sparks.

Soleil and her good luck charm, a mouse she thinks she’s saved from Auntie Ri’s murderous wrath, take a candle and venture through the cornfield that separates her family home from the Sparks’ property.  The eerie, moonlit cornfield is filled with all species of fright that sends Soleil running to quickly get to the other side.  But her haste leads to a big fall that causes her candle to set half the cornfield ablaze.  She searches for safety, but her little lungs can’t take all the smoke and she begins to fall into a deep fog.  Just as she’s passing out, something…or someone…comes from deep within the cornfield and snatches her up.

The next morning, she wakes up in an abandoned barn where Junior Sparks bursts in, seemingly towering 60ft into the sky above her. Soleil springs up, standing at the ready for attack and demands her treasure.  Junior recoils, hands in front of his face to protect himself...from little Soleil.  She relaxes her position and steps closer to Junior; he steps back.  They continue this dance, unsure of exactly who is prey and who is predator, until Soleil notices the treasure box peeking out of Junior’s satchel.  A scuffle ensues, sending Soleil and Junior bursting through the barn doors out to face the cornfield only to find that it has almost burned completely to the ground.

Soleil and Junior reluctantly trudge back to her house, but when Bernice finds her in the thick of the cornstalks with Junior, she immediately assumes he kidnapped Soleil and accuses him of setting the fire.  Too scared to tell the truth, Soleil allows Junior to take the rap for her accident and the town SHERIFF carts Junior off to jail.  As night falls, Soleil is riddled with guilt for selling Junior out and terrified that her mother and Auntie Ri will find out that it was really her who set the fire.  To save both Junior and herself from the law, Soleil decides to bust Junior out of jail and that the two of them must leave their tiny town for good.  They gas up the tractor and take off, leaving their little town and their little lives behind them for an adventure bigger than either of them could have ever imagined.

As the series progresses, Soleil and Junior uncover all the mysteries of their secret treasure, among them a magical book filled with a language unlike any they'd ever heard. They use the book as a road map of sorts, leading them to La Cite de la Lumiere...Paris, France...the amazing place featured on every page of the magic book. On this crazy roadtrip, Soleil and Junior encounter many amazing coincidences that make it apparent to Soleil that her French book is indeed leading her to her destiny.  She sees dozens of little Eiffel Towers peppering the Texas highways, just like the one in her book!  She meets a bevy of cancan dancers crossing at a railroad track, just like the illustrations of the dancers in Toulouse Lautrec’s famous paintings, also detailed in her magic book.  Sure the Eiffel Towers are really oil derricks, and the cancan dancers are really a gaggle of debutantes crossing to a cotillion, and the road signs they keep passing detailing 400 miles to Paris…200 miles to Paris…40 miles to Paris are really leading them to Paris, Texas—in Soleil and Junior’s eyes they are getting closer and closer to wonderland—Paris, France.

Meanwhile, Bernice and Auntie Ri are back home trying to figure out where Soleil has gone and forced to wonder where time has left them...all that time they used to believe they had to live bigger, to live better.  Auntie Ri discovers that you're never too old to love like a teenager, while Bernice must come to terms with a past that left her a single mother and the lies she's told to keep that past at bay. By the first season's conclusion, Junior Sparks gets recognized as a fugitive while out on the road and hauled back to their east-Texas hometown. Bernice convinces him to tell her where Soleil is headed and she and Auntie Ri start their own adventure to go find her.

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