The Censorship of Sister Mary Ignatius

Unforseen by playwright Christopher Durang, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You turned out to be a firestorm of a play. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights made it a mission to prevent productions of the play as often as possible. What Durang intend as a Catholic’s critical look at church doctrine and methods of transmission they have called “the most notoriously anti-Catholic play ever written.” In his epilogue to the script Durang describes many of the protests his play ignited. Here are some of them.

- Sister Mary opens at Playwrights Horizons in 1981. The Catholic League asks the New York State Arts Council to penalize Playwrights Horizons. When refused Catholic League appeals to the state legislature which supports Playwrights Horizons free speech.

- The Theatre Project in St. Louis announces a 1983 production in a hotel, but the Catholic League persuades the hotel to rescind their space. Two local Universities offer space for the performance. Local Senator Ewin L. Dirick tries to convince the universities or the arts council to cancel the performance. When he fails the national media picks up the story. The show sells out due to the publicity. The next year Dirick proposes a bill to cut the Arts Council budget and to refuse the Theatre Project access to the funds., it dies in committee.

- The Catholic League convinces the Mayor of Boston, Raymond L. Flynn to state the local production at Charles Playhouse is anti-Catholic. The local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith releases a similarly condemning statement and protests are rampant during previews. Once the reviews come out saying the lay is not anti-Catholic most of the antagonism dies down.

- The Catholic League stops a production in Detriot through an organized letter-writing campaign.

- In Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a small college drama department received petitions with 2,000 signatures each to get them to cancel the show. They did not and the next Board of Directors meeting faced picketers with signs accusing them of bigotry.

- In Erie, Pennsylvania a protest group backed down when they discovered the director was a Polish emigrant who had come to America for Artistic Freedom.

- A theater in Ponca City, Oklahoma canceled its performance after an intense campaign when a local priest met with the director.

- In Coral Gables, Florida a theater company received multiple death threats after doing a production of the play. It was so bad the secretary was warned to not open any packages for the managers in case it was a bomb.

To this day the protests continue. In 2008 the Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus refunded tickets to their students' production of the show after protests.


To read more about the Southeast Missouri State University protest and refunds check out "SEMO offers to refund tickets to controversial play" in the Southeast Missourian at http://www.free-times.com/index.php?cat=1992912064198287&ShowArticle_ID=11010806100644367