"Our Lady of 121st Street"
Comes to SpeakEasy

Beloved nun, Sister Rose, has died. And to make matters worse, someone has stolen her body from the funeral home where friends, family and former students have gathered to pay their last respects.

In the off-Broadway comedy “Our Lady of 121st Street,” being presented in its New England premiere by SpeakEasy Stage Company, it’s not about how Sister Rose died. Or even who stole the body. It’s all about how the years have affected those gathered in her memory. And how their lives have veered from the hopes and dreams they held in childhood.

SpeakEasy will be presenting “Our Lady” at the Boston Center for the Arts from March 5 - 27. In its off-Broadway debut, “Our Lady of 121st Street” earned Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel and Outer Critic Circle Award nominations for Best Play. The Boston production will be directed by Paul Melone, who directed SpeakEasy’s Norton Award-winning production of Neil LaBute’s “The Shape of Things” last season.

“Our Lady” is the latest effort from Stephen Adly Guirgis, whom the New York Times Magazine recently proclaimed as “maybe the best playwright in America under 40” and “poet laureate of the angry.”

The son of an Egyptian father and an Irish American mother, Guirgis grew up on New York’s Upper West Side and attended a Catholic school on West 121st Street -- much like the one in the play.

Guirgis’ other writing credits for the stage include “In Arabia,” “We’d All Be Kings” and “Jesus Stopped The ‘A’ Train,” which was nominated for an Olivier Award as Best New Play. For television, he has written for HBO’s “The Sopranos,” “NYPD Blue” and NBC’s “UC: Undercover.”

For tickets and information, call 617-426-ARTS.

-- OnStage Boston

2/17/04