“Miracle on South Division Street” revolves around the Nowak family, members of the Roman Catholic, Polish-American community living on the East Side of Buffalo, N.Y. Clara, the family matriarch, happily runs her soup kitchen and tends to the family heirloom – a 20-foot shrine to the Blessed Mother that commemorates the day in 1942 when the Blessed Virgin Mary materialized in her father’s barber shop. In a family meeting, daughter Ruth, a struggling actress, divulges her plan to go public with the family miracle by creating a one-woman play about the sacred event. However, the entire family’s faith is shaken to the core when a deathbed confession causes the family legend to unravel.
The New York Times calls the play, “a sprightly, gentle comedy,” and the Tucson Weekly calls it, ” a good-natured piece that has us laughing from start to finish at a wonderfully contrived setup and characters who are not so very different from people we know and love.”
The cast for “Miracle on South Division Street” includes *Rebecca Cox (Ruth), featured in BTE’s 2017-2018 season opener, the Jeff Recommended “The 39 Steps;” *Nick DuFloth (Jimmy), seen most recently as Gunney Sergeant in BTE’s 2019 Jeff Recommended production of “Defiance;” Millie Hurley (Clara), seen in last spring’s Jeff Recommended production of “Outside Mullingar;” and * Kelli Walker (Beverly), seen most recently in this fall’s “The Ding Dong, Or How the French Kiss,” as well as last spring’s Jeff Recommended production of “Outside Mullingar.”
Buffalo Theatre Ensemble presents “Miracle on South Division Street” by Tom Dudzick, directed by Steve Scott, in the Playhouse Theatre of McAninch Arts Center, 425 Fawell Blvd.,May 2-June 2. Press opening is Friday, May 3. Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $40. For more information, visit AtTheMAC.org or call 630.942.4000. All BTE 2018-2019 season performances contain adult themes and language.
