by John Pielmeier
by John Pielmeier
The Cast
Martha Livingstone . . . . . Sarah Ross
Mother Miriam Ruth. . . . . Marianne Kearns
Agnes. . . . . Monica Gutierrez, Sara Heier, Devan Tucking
Production Staff
Director . . . . . Sharon Sullivan
Set, Light, Costume Design . . . . . . Tony Naylor
Stage Manager . . . . . . Jason Bivens
Shop Supervisor . . . . . Lynn Wilson
Shop Crew . . . . . Jennifer Kabler, Mary Shirazi Ashley Millette,
Daric
Schroeder, Chien-Long Tai
Running Crew . . . . .Sarah Killenberg, Cole McKinney, Alissa Sheley
Agnes Art . . . . . Barbara Waterman-Peters
Publicity . . . . . Paul Prece
Box Office/House. . . . .Penny Weiner
This production explores the conscious and subconscious mind through the use of ritualistic and symbolic scenery, costumes and action. The mystery of the dead baby is not the most important truth explored in this production, but rather a context in which to challenge our ideas about faith, reason, mystery, miracles, sacrifice and redemption.
About the Playwright |
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| Born in Altoona, Pennsylvania in 1949, John Pielmeier began his career as an actor, working at Actors Theater of Louisville, The Guthrie Theater, Milwaukee Rep, Alaska Rep, Baltimore's Center Stage and the O'Neill National Playwrights' Conference. It was at the O'Neill that his play Agnes of God was first staged. A co-winner of the 1979 Great American Play Contest, Agnes premiered professionally in March 1980 at Actors Theater of Louisville, followed by several regional productions and a 17 month run on Broadway. His other plays include Courage, a one-man show about JM Barrie that premiered in Louisville, opened the new theater at the Lambs Club in New York City and has been filmed by Kentucky Educational Television; Jass, presented at the O'Neill Playwrights' Conference; Young Rube, a musical comedy (with music and lyrics by Matthew Selman) based on the formative years of cartoonist/inventor Rube Goldberg, which premiered at The Repertory Theater of St. Louis; and Willi, a one-man show based on the speeches of mountaineer Willi Unsoeld, presented (and performed by the author) at A Contemporary Theater in Seattle to great critical acclaim where it broke box office records. | For Choices
of the Heart, a television movie he wrote about the slain
American missionaries in El Salvador, he received a Christopher
Award, the Humanitas award, a Writers Guild of America nomination
and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from St. Edward's University
in Austin, Texas. He
has written several movies for television, as well as the screenplay
for the film Agnes of God (Writers Guild nomination). |
"...why do you worry? What good would it do you if I told you she is indeed a saint? I cannot make saints, nor can the Pope. We can only recognize saints when the plainest evidence shows them to be saintly. If you think her a saint, she is a saint to you. What more do you ask? That is what we call the reality of the soul, you are foolish to demand the agreement of the world as well...'
"'But it is the miracles that concern me. What you say takes no account of the miracles.'
"'Oh, miracles! They happen everywhere. They are conditional...Miracles are things that people cannot explain...Miracles depend much on time, and place, and what we know and do not know...Life is too great a miracle for us to make so much fuss about petty little reversals of what we pompously assume to be the natural order...Who is she?
"'That is what you must discover...and you must find your answer in psychological truth, not in objective truth...And while you are searching, get on with your own life and accept the possibility that is may be purchased at the price of hers and that this may be God's plan for you and her.'"
—Robertson Davies, Fifth Business