‘Sister Strikes Again!’
Published 10:00 am Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Sister is coming to save you from your sinful ways and the subtle evil of today’s life and culture; cleanse you of the unclean, put your shoes back onto the path of the righteous.
Sister is a solemnly stern and brazenly emphatic catechism teacher, and it is time for class. Don’t be late!
She just might wash your sins away with a fit of laughter in the one-woman show — “Sister Strikes Again: Late Nite Catechism 2”
After all, classes from the original “Late Nite Catechism” enjoyed her lessons so much that the Arch Diocese has promoted her from substitute to full-time teacher in “Sister Strikes Again.” That means she’ll be coming prepared with lesson plans and a class roll — that means the names of each audience member — in hand.
“She’ll have a film strip, and a pamphlet that she gives out at the beginning of class,” said the show’s co-creater Maripat Donovan. “And we also have a felt banner with which Sister talks about heaven and hell, purgatory and limbo in a Chutes and Latters game … because nothing inspires like felt.”
Sister herself will have all of the um, inspiring, unabashed all-knowingness, sass and wit which she did in the first. And then some now and the she’s become head of that class.
Behind the podium in the black and white habit will be actress Murphy O’Malley.
She’s one of a fluctuating group of about 30 female thespians, Donovan said, who play the supremely interactive role on stages across the country. It takes a special kind of actress to fill the one-woman role, she added.
“As an actress, it is the best, there’s nothing like it,” Donovan said. “You are the only person up there, you get to exercise your creativity to the fullest … you have a script but you improvise as well.”
The heart of it all is in the interaction with the audience. Each performance is different depending on what’s happening in the audience, I mean class — who comes in late, who forgot to turn off their cell phone, who’s wearing the short shorts that are inappropriate in the eyes of the all-knowing.
It’s almost like taking a trip back to the grade-school catechism classroom. But this class is for all ages and all denominations.
“Everyone, regardless if you went to Catholic school or not, you had a strict teacher like this sometime in your life,” Donovan said.
Sister was a creation that spawned from 16 years of inner-city Chicago Catholic school at the front end of Donovan’s life. Later on down the road, after finishing catholic school and majoring in theater at Loyola University, Donovan said the show’s genesis formed while she was cracking some Catholic school jokes at the dinner table with some friends. At the bequest of those friends, Donovan put her catechism thoughts into a solo-part drama, gave it the premise and off it went.
A virtually unknown form of interactive theater at that time, Donovan said, it quickly gained a following after its first show in a downtown Chicago store front building in 1993.
Almost 15 years later “Late Nite Catechism” has enjoyed successful stints in Chi-town, New York, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Scottsdale, Boston, Seattle and more than a hundred other cities. Now its sequel is making the rounds.
The Greater Hansville Area Advisory Committee — which also brought the first “Late Nite Catechism” to North Kitsap in 2003 — will be hosting the Seattle-area public premiere of “Late Nite Catechism 2” with a matinee at 2 p.m. Oct. 14 at the Bremerton High School Performing Arts Center — 1500 13th St. in Bremerton. Tickets are $27.50 general and $37.50 premium seating which can be purchased at the Hansville Market, Hansville Repair, Liberty Bay Books, Bethel Bookstore, The Dauntless Bookstore, American Marine Bank and the Kitsap Mall.
With a portion of the proceeds the GHAAC will be raising money to help pay for an estimated $1 million expansion of its community center, GHAAC president George Briese said.
So, ultra-North-Enders, it seems there are few better reasons for a road trip to Bremerton than a “Late Nite Catechism” class during the day.
