March 28, 2004
‘Sister Bernie’ puts the ‘fun’ in ‘fundraising’

Sister Bernie has an anger management problem, Father Chuck is a frustrated game show host and Sister Cherisse wants to flee the dishonest world of carnivals in which she grew up.

These three characters and their traveling bingo game greet the audience at “Sister Bernie’s Bingo Bash,” an interactive performance the group is taking to local theaters and churches in an effort to raise spirits and money at the same time.

Mary McHale (Sister Bernie), one of the owners of Crossroads Theater in Naperville and a member of St. Damian Parish in Oak Forest dreamed it up, and called in colleagues Jon Marco (Father Chuck) and Susan Gaspar (Sister Cherisse). The three—Catholics all—had worked together in Chicago’s improv and interactive theater scene, and they came together for their first improvised bingo game New Year’s Eve 2002, when McHale was looking for an idea to keep the audience at Crossroads Theater until midnight.

McHale and Marco sat down to talk about the play with Catholic New World staff writer Michelle Martin.

 

The Catholic New World: How did this go from a New Year’s Eve thing to a touring, fundraising production?

Jon Marco: When we did it the first time, we were like, “Oh my God, what are we doing? There were all these gaps and there was no structure.” So we were surprised when people started calling and saying they wanted to see the bingo show.

Mary McHale: But about three weeks later they were calling, and I said there was no bingo show. It was simply a ruse to keep them until midnight. The last man who called really did argue with me, and he said “I saw that show New Year’s Eve, and I want tickets to it.” So I said, “Well, you’re going to have to wait until we write it.”

Then I called Susan and Jon back and said, “Would you like to write a full production of “Sister Bernie’s Bingo Bash?” So we opened Standby Productions to house the show, and we’ve been getting requests for it ever since. And we decided that since the show is about fundraising—in the Catholic Church, bingo is a fundraiser and it always has been—the fundraiser show could become a fundraiser itself. When Catholic churches use it, it’s automatically a fundraiser for them. We charge a certain price per ticket, and they add whatever they want per ticket to create their fundraiser. When we do the show at a theater, a dollar from every ticket that’s sold will go to a not-for-profit from that area. We’ll talk a little bit about that not-for-profit, and then about fundraising and go into the bit about how we lost our bingo board and the whole story. That’s why the show fits in anywhere. Everybody gets bingo.

 

TCNW: When you first did this, what did people like about it?

MM: Obviously the people out in Naperville and the western suburbs, they have a pretty decent lifestyle out there, but we could not get over how quickly they wanted to win this ridiculous stuff we were giving away. They didn’t seem to be any less interested when they found out the prizes were these oddball ridiculous things.

JM: One guy won a purse. One guy won an umbrella.

MM: We did give away some religious gifts, and they were odd in themselves. A blinking Blessed Virgin—they were more kitsch than they were holy.

JM: That one goes over rather well.

 

TCNW: How has the show been received with church audiences?

MM: They all see it as all in good fun. We haven’t had one remark at all about being disrespectful. I don’t think any one of us is looking to be disrespectful to the church. I don’t like that kind of humor anyway. This humor is steeped in character. These are three characters that have a dilemma. They have a central dilemma—their bingo board’s broken and they have to go find a place to play bingo—and they have personal dilemmas. They have idiosyncracies that come out in this. Sister Bernie’s got an anger management problem, Father Martini’s a game show host wannabe, and Sister Cherisse is a former carney who took off when she found out the games in the carnival were fixed.

JM: What’s great is that we worked out their backgrounds completely, so they’re not caricatures. They actually are people, so you can’t be insulting with them.

MM: What I like about interactive comedy is that the audience has a different air. They’re tense, because they’re going to be involved in it. They’re participating from beginning to end, because they’re all playing bingo. It’s 10 cents a card for all seven games, and we play seven games according to the seven deadly sins and their seven opposite virtues. … The gifts (given to winners) now relate to those sins and virtues.

 

TCNW: What have you learned about Catholic churches, besides that they all need money?

MM: Every organization needs money, who doesn’t? I think it’s that each one of them, because their backgrounds are so different, you can see that some definitely still have a little bit of their immigrant background with them. You go into the South Side Catholic churches, and you’ll definitely see the Polish group, you’ll definitely see the German group, you’ll definitely see the Irish. With so many [Hispanics] coming in, you can see that in their church, how they decorate. But it doesn’t change their commitment to the church at all. … They all kind of come together under the umbrella of being Catholic, and they all need to do fundraising, and they’re all looking for something kind of different. They’re tired of bake sales.

JM: I found them to be incredibly alike. I was amazed to see, no matter what area you’re in, they’re all basically the same type of people coming together for a good cause and wanting to be entertained. MM: It’s amazing how normal the people are, because they’re with their own community. It’s not like they’re going to the theater. I think they tend to act up a little more, because they know everybody.

JM: Definitely. When we do it in the theater and someone wins, people might clap, but in a church, it’s like “Oh, Ann won!” and everybody gets excited. There’s a comfort level.

 

TCNW: Why are priests and nuns funny?

MM: I think it’s because they have chosen a different way that for us, the general public, is not the norm.

JM: I think we turn them into real people. We don’t keep them up on this pedestal—that’s Father So-and-so, that’s Sister Uh-oh.

MM: That makes them separate from us, and in this piece, they are so not separate from you. They are just like you. They got troubles, too.

JM: If you bring that humanity into your character, other people can relate to them as they are. There’s no mystery about them. They’re everyday people. And we made sure that the character background of all of them is real. They’re everyday people who decided to do this in their lives.

MM: And they’re actually breaking out of their own roles in the play. That’s what propels them into this whole scenario.

 

Sister Bernie will bring her Bingo Bash to St. Francis Borgia Parish in Chicago March 20 ((773) 625-1118 for information) and to St. James Parish in Sauk Village March 27 ((708) 757-2170 for information). For information about “Sister Bernie’s Bingo Bash” call McHale at (708) 296-7633 or visit www.standbyproductions.com.

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