Hail Mary!

Hail Mary
Hail Mary!
Stage Door Players
through April 17, 2016

Tom Dudzick, who wrote Miracle on South Division Street, also penned this work which has also greatly pleased most audiences. I say “most” because there remain among us those who might say”. . . don’t confuse me with the facts, as my mind is made up.”

We meet the five characters at Saint Aloysius School where Mary (Suzanne Zoller) is trying to get through to a class of youngsters. She’s not a nun, but she is sort of an apprentice who feels that it may be her calling. She works under direction of a tough Sister Regina (Ann Wilson) who believes that you may be entitled to your opinion but you are wrong. And she is unanimous.

There is a novice nun named Sister Felicia (Eliana Marianes) who is certainly not from the old school as is Sister Regina. She wants to be able to see the world not only as it may be, but as it might become. Set in current time, the underlaying issue is one of religion and whether a deity may have created man, or the other way around; and if there is an all-loving one, how do you explain the evils which make the nightly news on a daily basis?

Theo Harness is great as Father Stan. He may be wearing the dog collar, but he’s nobody’s tamed pet. He may be ordained but is not the cloistered type in any way. And the other gent in the story is the father of one of the students, named Joe (Jeff K. Lester) who would want to help Mary find her own path through life rather than follow some old map that may not be timely in our world today.

Dina Shadwell, directed the Miracle on South Division Street here, also directs this one, with a classroom set by Chuck Welcome. It may not appeal to those with strict religious doctrines imbedded; but regardless of one’s upbringing it will certainly resonate with any of us whose brains are still in working order and who are capable of seeing life on this planet as it is, rather than as it may have been; meanwhile keeping alive a sense of humor and hope.

More info and tickets at StageDoorPlayers.net