Studio 3 — Student Laboratory Theatre

UMBC’s Department of Theatre presents the inaugural Studio 3 — Student Theatre Laboratory, a production of one-act plays featuring Gidion’s Knot by Johanna Adams, directed by Serafina Donahue; and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You by Christopher Durang, directed by Ally Kocerhan.

Gidion’s Knot
By Johanna Adams
Directed by Serafina Donahue

Over the course of a strained parent teacher conference, a grieving mother confronts her son’s fifth grade teacher over the events that led up to her son’s suicide. Searching for the answers as to why Gidion had been suspended just hours before he took his life, Corryn discovers a troublesome portrait of her talented eleven-year-old. Gidion may have been bullied by other students, or he may have been an abuser himself. As his story is painstakingly revealed, the women try to reconstruct a satisfying explanation for Gidion’s act and come to terms with their own culpability as caretakers.

Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You
By Christopher Durang
Directed by Ally Kocerhan

Sister Mary Ignatius, a teaching nun who is much concerned with sin in all of its various forms, delivers a cautionary lecture to her charges. One of them, a precocious little boy named Thomas can quote the Ten Commandments on cue, and each time he does so Sister Mary rewards him with a cookie. But when several of her former students turn up the picture darkens, along with Sister Mary’s indignation. One of them is the happy mother of an illegitimate child; another a contented homosexual; still another has had two abortions—the first after having been raped on the night of her mother’s death; while another student, now an alcoholic, contemplates suicide. Their stories are disturbing—but also very funny—and it is quickly apparent that one thing they all have in common is their loathing for Sister Mary and the unyielding dogma she forced on them in their formative years. In the end there is mayhem and bloodshed but, with this, the unsettling feeling that, amid the laughter, some devastating truths have been told.

Performances:
Thursday, March 31, 8 pm
Friday, April 1, 8 pm
Saturday, April 2, 2 pm*
Saturday, April 2, 8 pm
Sunday, April 3, 2 pm*

Tickets: $15 General Admission, $10 Students/Seniors. No-fee tickets available online via MissionTix.com or at the box office (cash only.)

*Complementary tickets will be available for UMBC students for the 2 pm matinee performances.