Sunday School Cinema - Dirty Dancing Style (review)

Being a part of the Chicago creative community for over seven years now, I've seen comedies, parodies, dramedies, and calamities! My mother-in-law, aunt, and friend decided to come in for the weekend for a wholesome comedy good time. I thought, hmmm, how about that new Sunday School Cinema show? Vicki Quade has been running Late Nite Catechism at The Royal George Theatre for years, it's their staple, go to a show that everyone loves.

I knew this spin off could be good for my family since, well, I'm a movie maker, and they love movies!

So this past Sunday we went. To start, the set up is adorably proper. Against the backdrop of Sister's class is a billboard of all past and present actors (I won't tell you why, it's part of the surprise of the show). We all admire the set and chat with other audience members about how we should behave when Sister arrives. The ladies behind us were howling and talking about their own Catholic school days and how they planned to dupe the nun. My group was slightly nervous, none of us being Catholic at all, and sitting in the FIRST ROW.

Then enters Sister. Some of us are laughing, some of us not. The Sister makes one thing clear-we will address her as Sister ALWAYS. And then immediately hands the lady behind us a tissue to cover her exposed brassiere.

The nun shows by Quade are always interactive, which makes this one especially fun because we were asked to share our favorite movies. And everyone loves movies. We each wrote our "movie reviews" on a piece of paper that we placed in a fishbowl. Later Sister would pull a few out and talk to us about whether our choices were appropriate according to the Catholic movie rating system.

So just as we were all starting to relax up in front row "safety zone" Sister pulls out a piece of paper, glances over it, looks down at the audience and asks "Where is Anita?" Anita is my aunt. As it turns out my innocent Aunt Anita decided to write down Dirty Dancing as her favorite movie. Seconds later we all had a bent over belly laughing good time as Sister made Anita put her nose in the center of the circle on the chalkboard. When Anita tried to plead with Sister about how the movie (and Patrick Swayze) represented young love, Sister had had about enough!

Nearing the middle of the show we had a sing a long from one of Sister's favorite movies, and I even played a part in the reenactment of another!

Lesson learned: everyone is a movie star in Sister's class! And when Sister took a break for 15 minutes, she said we could feel free to visit the refreshment stand. After a few cocktails, you could only imagine the fun we had for the second half of the show!

The show was done in such good taste, praising those who did well, and innocently giving hard time to others. All those who did got picked on were left unscathed. In fact, it seemed to reach a point where some of the audience WANTED to get picked on, as it made the show that much more fun.

I recommend this to anyone and all ages. And especially for a post church service outing. Very nicely done and I'll be spreading the word!
-- Jessica Hardy

AVANT/CHICAGO: CULTURAL ECLECTICIS
http://avantchicago.com
10/20/10