GCCC Theatre Jan. 30-Feb.1: AGNES OF GOD
Garden City Community College Theatre program is proud to announce the second production of their 2024-25 year, Agnes of God by John Pielmeier, which will play in the KCB Bank Auditorium in the Pauline Joyce Fine Arts Building on the GCCC campus, January 30 – February 1, and February 6 – 8, all at 7:00pm.
Agnes of God, a dark but ultimately redemptive drama, follows the story of Dr. Martha Livingstone, a clinical psychiatrist who has been charged with diagnosing the mental state of young Agnes, an innocent and somewhat naïve nun who has been found in her quarters with an unresponsive newborn in her wastepaper basket. Protesting she remembers nothing of her pregnancy or delivery, Agnes is now the center of combating systems and philosophies, all of which are touted as the only way to determine the truth of what happened—secularism against religion, church against state, doubt against faith. Defended—or attacked—on both sides by Livingstone and her overly-protective Mother Superior Miriam, Agnes seems to be the one person who actually knows the truth but doesn’t vehemently protest a position.
“This play is fascinating because it is unusually fair-minded—and even funny,” says Director of Theatre Dr. Joshua Kelly. “Often times, these kinds of philosophically dialectic plays attempt ambivalence but fail. Agnes of God does something unique by reminding us that the material world can be so dark we wish despite ourselves to believe in miracles—and that living life wholly bound up in the hope for the miraculous makes us blind to the beauty of the material world we actually live in.”
Agnes of God originally performed on Broadway in 1982 and was adapted into a film in 1985 starring Anne Bancroft, Jane Fonda, and Meg Tilly. It has been performed in numerous professional, collegiate, and community theatres since—first as a powerful drama exploring repeatedly relevant themes, and secondly as an exceptionally-written play for a specifically woman cast, of which there are not enough, says Dr. Kelly. “We stumbled quite by accident into an all-man play last year with The Pillowman, and we really wanted to balance that out this year with an all-woman cast, as so many of our talented incoming freshman students are woman actors. After considering several titles for our winter show, Agnes of God came to us as a timely, challenging, and ultimately fitting choice for our students.”
The winter show at GCCC (the first attempted since the program’s revival last year) creates specific challenges for the GCCC Theatre Department: in order to fit it in the calendar, there are only fourteen rehearsals before tech week (less than half as many rehearsals as for a show in autumn or spring semesters), and requires participating actors to use their holiday break to memorize their parts entirely before rehearsals begin. Likewise, because of the time constraints, design for the winter show will be similarly conceptual—Agnes of God, in this case, will have virtually no set except a platform and a couple of chairs, and all scenery, shifts in focus, and times will be denotated entirely by stark and dramatic lighting and extreme use of darkness and shadow, thematically very different than GCCC’s most recent productions. But director Kelly maintains that the effects will be intense and beautiful. “In tone and aesthetics it will be a radical break from our last two comedies,” said Dr. Kelly. “The artists involved are excited for the change in direction and we think audiences will be, too.”
Agnes of God stars GCHS senior Veronica McCallum as Dr. Martha Livingstone, GCCC sophomore Alyssa Santana as Mother Miriam, and GCCC freshman Phybee Madlangbayand as Agnes; GCCC sophomore Ryan Pilosof serves as the show’s assistant director and stage manager, and it is directed and designed by Dr. Joshua Kelly. It performs in the KCB Bank Auditorium in the Pauline Joyce Fine Arts Building on the GCCC campus, January 30 – February 1, and February 6 – 8, all at 7:00pm. All seats are FREE to the public and seating is general admission (houses will open at 6:30pm). Because of some dark themes and adult language, Agnes of God is recommended for mature audiences.
Questions about this production can be directed to drama@gcccks.edu, and information about current and upcoming productions and program events can be found at GCCC’s Theatre’s Facebook and Instagram page.
Agnes of God is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com
