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Katie Beekman nominated for Rawlings Woman Executive of the Year

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Whistleblower Complaint

<p>Talk to the Wilkes University students who are presenting &#8220;Doubt: A Parable&#8221; tonight through Sunday, and you&#8217;ll realize they&#8217;ve given a great deal of thought to the serious topics addressed in John Patrick Shanley&#8217;s Pulitzer Prize-winning, Tony Award-winning play.</p><p>The only light moments in a recent conversation arose when Maddison Black and Melissa Berardelli, who share the role of Sister Aloysius, talked about nuns they had known in real life when they were students in Catholic schools.</p><p>&#8220;She was only 4&#8217; 11,&#8221; but she was so intimidating,&#8221; Black said of one teacher who &#8220;stopped me in the hall and said &#8216;Your skirt is entirely too short.&#8217; &#8220;</p><p>Admonishing Black to let down the hem, the nun advised her that &#8220;All women should know how to sew!&#8221;</p><p>That sounds like a comment you might hear from Sister Aloysius, a character so traditional and strict she resists the idea of children singing about Frosty the Snowman, as opposed to having only religious songs in the Christmas pageant. But she also cares about the young people in her school, and is willing to take on a fight to protect any who might be in danger.</p><p>That fits in with what both Black and Berardelli remember, with Berardelli describing one elementary-school teacher as &#8220;one of the strongest, most independent-minded women I know. She cared so much for all of the students.&#8221;</p><p>In the play, Sister Aloysius also cares &#8212; and she&#8217;s particularly worried about a student named Donald, the only African-American student in the parochial school where she works in the Bronx in 1964. She doesn&#8217;t have proof, but strongly suspects the church pastor/boys basketball coach Father Flynn of engaging in some sort of inappropriate contact with Donald.</p><p>So, will audiences simply hate Father Flynn?</p><p>&#8220;Father Flynn is a very likable person, especially the way the playwright wrote him,&#8221; said Kris Tjornhom, who shares the role of the priest. &#8220;Sister James ends up taking his side, thinking &#8216;This guy&#8217;s too nice. He can&#8217;t possible do a horrendous act.&#8217; &#8220;</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s not one character in the show you can 100 percent get behind,&#8221; said Alex Booth, the other actor who shares the role of Father Flynn. &#8220;You can think Sister Aloysius is too strict, Sister James is oblivious and that Mrs. Muller doesn&#8217;t care about her son.&#8221;</p><p>When Sister Aloysius shares her suspicions with Mrs. Muller, Donald&#8217;s mother does not express outrage about the relationship between her son and the priest, but hints it&#8217;s preferable to the boy&#8217;s relationship with his own father, which seems to include beatings because Donald is, in his mother&#8217;s words, &#8220;that way.&#8221;</p><p>As in not heterosexual, which in 1964 was not as accepted as it is today.</p><p>&#8220;He (Father Flynn) might not be the perfect role model, but at least he&#8217;s showing interest in her son,&#8221; said Brianna Rowland, who shares the role of Mrs. Muller. &#8220;More than anything she wants her son to stay in that school. At the end of the day, she thinks if he&#8217;s out on the street or goes to public school where there&#8217;s less discipline he&#8217;ll be killed.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;She keeps saying, &#8216;It&#8217;s just till June.&#8217; &#8220;</p><p>Assistant professor of theatre Jon Liebetrau, who is directing the show, said one reason he chose the play is because of the way it reflects the country&#8217;s political situation. &#8220;If you&#8217;re on one side and someone from the other side contradicts what you believe, you think it&#8217;s not true; they&#8217;re lying.&#8221;</p><p>As for the guilt or innocence of the Father Flynn character, Liebetrau said, &#8220;It&#8217;s pretty clear he&#8217;s done it.&#8221;</p><p>But the director has told the actors who portray Father Flynn to &#8220;think of him as not guilty &#8230; he justifies to himself what he does. He says &#8216;that boy needs me&#8217; and &#8216;I&#8217;m the only one that takes care of that boy.&#8217; &#8220;</p><p>&#8220;He sees everything he does as an act of love,&#8221; Booth said. &#8220;He says to Sister James, &#8216;There&#8217;s nothing wrong with love.&#8217; &#8220;</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not a play about the church,&#8221; Liebetrau said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a play about people&#8217;s convictions.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s really an interesting journey,&#8221; said Sarah Weynand, who shares the role of Sister James.</p><p>Each role is double cast because, Liebetrau said, he knew he had not just four actors with the talent to carry the four-person show, but &#8220;eight people who could fill all the roles, and tell the story well.&#8221;</p><p>Cast &#8220;A,&#8221; set to perform at 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, includes Maddison Black as Sister Aloysius, Brianna Rowland as Mrs. Muller, Sarah Weynand as Sister James and Kris Tjornhom as Father Flynn.</p><p>Cast &#8220;1,&#8221; set to perform Thursday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 8 p.m., includes Melissa Berardelli as Sister Aloysius, Michaela Catapano as Sister James, Mmachi Dimoriaku as Mrs. Muller and Alex Booth as Father Flynn.</p><p><ins><strong>IF YOU GO</strong></ins></p><p><ins><strong>What:</strong> &#8216;Doubt: A Parable&#8217;</ins></p><p><ins><strong>When:</strong> 8 p.m. Sept. 26, 27, and 28 and 2 p.m. Sept. 28 and 29</ins></p><p><ins><strong>Where:</strong> Dorothy Dickson Darte Center for the Performing Arts, 239 S. River St., Wilkes-Barre.</ins></p><p><ins><strong>Tickets:</strong> general admission is $10, $5 for students and seniors and free for all Wilkes students, faculty and staff with ID. Parking is available at the Henry Student Center along with handicapped accessible options</ins></p><p><ins><strong>Box office: </strong>570-408-4540.</ins></p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Cast &#8220;1,&#8221; set to perform Thursday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 8 p.m., incudes Melissa Berardelli as Sister Aloysius, Michaela Catapano as Sister James and Alex Booth as Father Flynn. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/web1_doubt.with_.alex_.jpg</photo0><caption0>Cast &#8220;1,&#8221; set to perform Thursday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 8 p.m., incudes Melissa Berardelli as Sister Aloysius, Michaela Catapano as Sister James and Alex Booth as Father Flynn. </caption0><photoCredit0>Submitted photo </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/web1_doubt.with_.the_.mom_.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Maddison Black as Sister Aloysius confers with Brianna Rowland as Mrs. Muller in a scene from Wilkes University&#8217;s production of &#8216;Doubt: A Parable.&#8217; </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/web1_doubt.with_.the_.mom_.jpg</photo1><caption1>Maddison Black as Sister Aloysius confers with Brianna Rowland as Mrs. Muller in a scene from Wilkes University&#8217;s production of &#8216;Doubt: A Parable.&#8217; </caption1><photoCredit1>Submitted photo </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/web1_doubt.kris_.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Cast &#8220;A,&#8221; set to perform at 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, includes Maddison Black as Sister Aloysius, Sarah Weynand as Sister James and Kris Tjornhom as Father Flynn. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/web1_doubt.kris_.jpg</photo2><caption2>Cast &#8220;A,&#8221; set to perform at 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, includes Maddison Black as Sister Aloysius, Sarah Weynand as Sister James and Kris Tjornhom as Father Flynn. </caption2><photoCredit2>Submitted photo </photoCredit2></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mary Therese Biebel</p><p>mbiebel@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>IF YOU GO </strong></p><p><strong>What:</strong> &#8216;Doubt: A Parable&#8217;</p><p><strong>When:</strong> 8 p.m. Sept. 26, 27, and 28 and 2 p.m. Sept. 28 and 29</p><p><strong>Where:</strong> Dorothy Dickson Darte Center for the Performing Arts, 239 S. River St., Wilkes-Barre.</p><p><strong>Tickets:</strong> general admission is $10, $5 for students and seniors and free for all Wilkes students, faculty and staff with ID. Parking is available at the Henry Student Center along with handicapped accessible options</p><p><strong>Box office: </strong>570-408-4540.</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mary Therese Biebel at 570-991-6109 or on Twitter @BiebelMT</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Two casts to perform‘Doubt: A Parable’ at Wilkes