photo by Charles Marinaro
Elizabeth Franz as Sister Mary
(Ensemble Studio Theatre)

Ensemble Studio Theatre Production

Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You was first presented off-off Broadway by the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City on a bill with one act plays by David Mamet, Marsha Norman, and Tennessee Williams on December 14, 1979.  The production was directed by Jerry Zaks, set design by Brian Martin, light design by Marie Louise-Moreto, costume design by Madeline Cohen. The cast was:

Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You was presented off-Broadway by Playwrights Horizons in New York City, this time on a double bill with Durang’s The Actor’s Nightmare, on October 14, 1981. The production was directed by Jerry Zaks, set design by Karen Schulz, costume design by Willaim Ivey Long, lighting design by Paul Gallo, sound design by Aural Fixation, production stage manager was Esther Cohen. The cast (which doubled in The Actor’s Nightmare) was: 

The Playwrights Horizons production subsequently moved with the same cast to an open off-Broadway run at the Westside Arts Theatre, where it played until January 29, 1984.  During this run of Actor’s and Sister Mary, many actors took over the roles. 

The role of Sister Mary was later played by Nancy Marchand, Mary Louise Wilson, Kathleen Chalfont, Lynn Redgrave, Patricia Gage. 

Thomas was played by Guy-Paris Thompson, Evan Sandman, Damon Dukakis, Vaughan Sandman, Timmy Geissler. 
Gary was played by Jeffrey Hayenga, Mark Herrier, Kevin O’Rourke.   Diane was played by Carolyn Mignini, Brenda Currin, Madi Weland.  Philomena was played by Deborah Rush, Alice Playten, Cynthia Darlow, Winnie Holzman, Angee Cockcroft.   Aloysius was played by Christopher Durang, Brian Keeler, John Short.

There were also many productions of Sister Mary Ignatius around the country.  Notable ones were in Los Angeles starring Elizabeth Huddle as Sister, later taken over by Lynn Redgrave and Valerie Curtin.  In San Francisco, Lynn Redgrave again played Sister, taken over by Cloris Leachman, then Peggy Cass.  In Boston, Elizabeth Franz recreated her role, taken over by Kathleen Chalfont

photo by Susan Cook
Elizabeth Franz as Sister Mary
(Playwrights Horizon)

Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You is actually a long one act, but it is sometimes performed by itself, which is why it is being included in the Full Length Play section.  Also, it was more than usually significant in Durang’s career and “feels” full length in its impact.  Durang was raised as a Catholic, and went to Catholic schools for grammar school and high school.  And he wrote this satiric play, looking back somewhat amazed at the complexity of the dogma he was taught as a child. 

Sister Mary was on the 10 best lists of the New York Times, the New York Post, and Time Magazine, and received almost universally glowing reviews. 

Only a writer of real talent can write an angry play that remains funny and controlled even in its most savage moments. "Sister Mary Ignatius" confirms that Christopher Durang is just such a writer. [His] most consistently clever and deeply felt work yet. It has the sting of a revenge drama, even as it rides waves of demonic laughter. Ms. Franz is brilliant. After her real – and insane – personality is revealed, she still remains all too frighteningly human.
     -  Frank Rich, The New York Times.

Durang is one of the most ferociously funny young American dramatists, and Sister Mary is his most ferociously funny work.  The object of his lacerating laughter is the Roman Catholic Church as educator. …the figure of Sister Mary accumulates a terrifying comic power as her moral certainty reaches a climax of insanely logical violence.  Jerry Zaks’s direction gives color and nuance to the play, and Elizabeth Franz’s performance is nothing short of devastating.  The classic treatment of this theme is Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, where despite his resisting of Jesuit hellfire pedagogy young Stephen Dedalus is accused by a friend of being “supersaturated with the religion in which you say you disbelieve.”  What gives Durang’s play its ultimate kick is the sense that Sister Mary’s belief is stronger in its visionary mania than the ravaged rationalisms that oppose it.
     - Jack Kroll, Newsweek

Christopher Durang’s "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You" is a hysterically funny, bitter, anguished, out-of-control moral comedy that stands as a rebuke to all “bad taste humor” which refuses to acknowledge the implications of its attacks.  Durang reveals himself to be as angry as Lenny Bruce and nearly as incisive: he has, for the first time, dared to let the laughs drop for part of his play in order to make his audience squirm.  It is one of those grand moments when an unbridled talent finally shows what he is capable of doing. …If the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s second round of Invitational short plays had done nothing more than bring this extraordinary work to life, it would be justification enough.
     - Terry Curtis Fox, Village Voice (on Ensemble Studio Theatre production)

There is a manic imagination possessed by Christopher Durang that makes him the jolliest maverick of the younger American playwrights. …[Sister Mary] struck me as the best piece of Durang’s writing I’ve seen to date…  The acting throughout is fine – I was particularly taken by Jeff Brooks as the beleagured and confounded Hamlet [in the curtain raiser The Actor’s Nightmare], Elizabeth Franz was marvelous as the acid-souled Sister Mary Ignatius, and an ingratiating child actor, Mark Stefan, as Sister Mary’s youthful myrmidon.  The plays…are a joy and deserve to become a hit of the season.
     - Clive Barnes, New York Post
       [note: “myrmidon” means “an unquestioning follower”]