Category
with Critical Mass Performance Group2019 – 2025
Mariology is a performance & festival of ideas illuminating the Virgin Mary’s contradictory roles as source of strength & comfort, and as weapon of oppression.
A Catholic 5th grade classroom of impressionable 10-yr-old girls swirls with anxiety, sexual mystery, fear, racism, and long division. The rituals of the school day and its indoctrinations explode into a wild spectacle of the girls’ rebellions and fantasies in a raucous, ironic, and tender journey of self-discovery and empowerment. And even though it encompasses religious territory, Mariology is not about religion. The project has been inspired by so many questions, like: What is “virginity” and what does it have to do with a woman’s worth? Why have we not had a female President? How did a brown Jewish girl become the bleached-white mother of the Christian God? Why is Mary the only named female in the Quran? How was an Indigenous goddess transformed into La Virgen to colonize a nation? What if Mary had said “no”? We’ve come to realize that whether or not you believe in the Virgin Mary, she has a lot to do with you.
Presented at Mixed Blood Theatre, Minneapolis, 2023
Presented at Boston Court Pasadena, 2025
written, directed, & scenic design by: Nancy Keystone
created in collaboration with:
Critical Mass Performance Group
original music & sound design by: Randall Tico
Ensemble
Gabriela Bonet, Fran de Leon, Russell Edge, Lorne Green, Amir Levi, Paul Outlaw (2023), Valerie Spencer
Production Team
producer: Cece Tio
stage manager: MJ Adamson (2023), Stacy McIntosh (2023)
costume designer: Lena Sands [original uniform design by Jenny Pila]
lighting designer: Elizabeth Harper (2023), Christine Ferriter (2025)
props designers: Atria Pirouzmand & Ali Roustaei
dramaturg: Tom Bryant
guy who does things: Turner Munch
Developed with the support of: Boston Court Pasadena, Center Theatre Group with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and CTG/FWD, David Lee Foundation, Doris Duke Artist Award, New England Foundation for the Arts, Outside In Theatre, Pennington Dance Group.
photos by Rich Ryan & Nancy Keystone