by Milan Stitt (Dramatists Play Service)

Directed by Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson

• April 23-25, and April 29-May 1, 2010
• 7:30PM, except Sunday, April 25 at 2PM
• The Studio Theatre, Public Affairs Center (PAC) Level 1, UIS Campus
• Photo Gallery

Play Description

Cast: 4 men, 5 women

In 1911 in a remote northern Michigan parish, a young nun, Sister Rita, mysteriously dies.  Her superior, Father Rivard, is charged with the crime.  As the trial unfolds four years later, the story alternates between the past and the present, revealing a conflicted relationship between the young nun and the priest. Sister Rita tries to inject color and life into the rural, drab town, bringing more tension to the surface.  Part courtroom drama, part memory play, part romance, the play explores conflicts between duty to the church and duty to self, forbidden passions, and divisions between strict traditional morality and complex human emotions.