For Immediate Release: November 9, 2006
Media Contact: Harriet Goodheart, Temple Theaters, 215.204.1334

What has become of Sister Rose? The beloved nun is clearly dead, but as the devoted neighborhood denizens reunite for her wake at the Ortiz Brothers Funeral Home in Harlem, they discover that her body has been stolen from its casket.

Thus begins “Our Lady of 121st Street,” playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis’ blistering comedy that opens Thursday, Nov. 16, in Temple University’s Randall Theater, 13th Street above Norris Street. The Temple Theaters production runs through Dec. 2.

The mysterious departure of the departed’s body serves as the plot device for the play’s real focus on a panorama of a dozen over-the-top characters whose paths unexpectedly re-cross at this unplanned reunion. The intensity of their emotional encounters with each other creates theatrical moments that are often outrageously funny, and always deeply human, with exploding tempers, despair and disappointment, regret and redemption and lots of gritty language in the mix.

When “Our Lady of 121st Street” opened Off Broadway in 2003, The New York Times said, “Mr. Guirgis ... has one of the finest imaginations for dialogue to come along in years. [He] would qualify as the poet laureate of the angry. He’s interested in people who have a great deal to be angry about, and he has great empathy for them.”

Guirgis’ “people” tell their stories through a succession of episodic scenes in which they vent their anger, reveal their pasts and alternately seek forgiveness or shift the blame for who they have become.

“Yet Guirgis’ shrewd litany of scenes reveals, through this series of chance encounters between both new and old acquaintances, a host of small miracles of hope,” said director Douglas C. Wager, artistic director for Temple Theaters. “The playwright juxtaposes this world of misfit characters caught in a comic purgatory, waiting for a crime to be solved, with an unexpected yearning for forgiveness.”

Set designer for “Our Lady of 121st Street” is Kathleen Chadwick, with costumes designed by Brian Strachan, both third-year MFA design candidates. Lighting design is by undergraduate theater major Steve Heitz. Sound designer Paul Winnick is an undergraduate information science and technology major.

Opening night curtain for “Our Lady of 121st Street” on Thursday, Nov. 16, is at 7 p.m. Performances continue Friday and Saturday, Nov. 17 and 18, Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 20 and 21, and Tuesday through Saturday, Nov. 28–Dec. 2, at 8 p.m. (except for a 7 p.m. curtain on Wednesday, Nov. 29, as part of the Second Wednesday Dinner-Plus-Theater package at Temple’s Diamond Club). Saturday matinees Nov. 18 and Dec. 2 are at 2 p.m.

Tickets for “Our Lady of 121st Street” are $20. Seniors, Temple employees and non-Temple students pay $15 (discount tickets not available on-line or by phone); free for Temple students with TUid and copy of current roster. Tickets are available at the Liacouras Center Box Office, 1776 N. Broad St. (in person cash-only sales), online at www.liacourascenter.com or by phone at 1-888-OWLS-TIX.

For more information, call the Temple Theaters Information Line at 215-204-1122.

Editor’s Note to Media: For review tickets, contact Patricia Allen, Temple Theaters marketing and public relations director, at 215-204-1334, or e-mail patallen@temple.edu.

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