Juan Diego: Live on Stage!

Earlier this year, our series, Juan Diego, was recreated as a stage play at La Salle Academy in New York City. We met with Barbara Powers, who put on the production, to discuss the creative process behind it, as well as some of the results.

The Merry Beggars: How did you first find out about The Merry Beggars?

Barbara Powers: I first found out about The Merry Beggars by listening to Relevant Radio.  I was interested because I liked the idea of listening to a radio play and you were doing “A Christmas Carol”.  Charles Dickens is my favorite author and I reread A Christmas Carol every year around Christmas time.

TMB: What was the process like for getting/creating the script?

BP: I listened to The Saints play Juan Diego and typed it while I was listening to it.  I had to keep pausing it and typing, pause, type, etc.  It took a while.  LOL!  I had to adapt the script because I have all boys. I took out Maria Lucia’s dialogue and had the other characters just talk about her.  I also had to cut out some dialogue to make the script shorter.  

TMB: Can you tell us about your school?

BP: The school I work for is La Salle Academy.  It’s an all boys Catholic High School on the lower east side of Manhattan.  It is the flagship school of Christian Brothers Academy in the United States.  They have a 176-year history in New York City.  Their mascot is The Cardinal, because two boys that graduated from La Salle went on to become Cardinals in The Catholic Church:  Cardinal Patrick Hayes, and Cardinal George Mundelein.  ‍

TMB: What was the process of bringing the Juan Diego series to life on stage?

BP: I teach the drama class every other day for one hour.  I gave them the script around the beginning of March and the show was scheduled for June 7th.  We practiced in the classroom because the stage is in the gymnasium and there were always gym classes going on when I had the drama class, so we only practiced on the stage three times before the performance.  I bought some props and costume pieces and borrowed some from my community theater prop shop in Staten Island.  
We had a wonderful guest lecturer, a theater professor at New York University, teach the boys about “The World of your Play”.  They had to research real images of the characters and settings of the play and write about what the mood and tone was for every scene they were in.  They had to think about how the characters and/or settings change throughout the play.  I think that really helped them get a better sense of what the play was about and what their characters were actually doing.  
I also taught them a lesson on the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Juan Diego’s tilma.  It was important for them to have the historical context.  ‍

TMB: What were some of the challenges you faced when putting on the Juan Diego Series?

BP: One of the challenges I faced were that the students did not elect to take the class, they were just put into it.  So, none of them had any experience on stage before, except maybe in elementary school.  Also, none of them memorized all of their lines, so they all still had their scripts in their hands during the performance.  They were generally creative during rehearsals and seemed to enjoy it, but when they got in front of an audience of their peers, some of them got nervous and didn’t perform the things they practiced.   It was also challenging carrying many bags of props and costumes to work on the subway.  Also, I needed someone to play Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Luckily, one of the young teachers agreed to do it.  She liked the idea of stepping outside of her comfort zone.  

TMB: How did your students respond to the series?

BP: My students responded very well.  They loved The Saints series.  I first presented the series on Carlo Acutis as a lesson on listening.  I think that is an important skill that students today need to work on.  They are so saturated with images that they’re not used to not having something to look at.  I made up some questions that they had to answer while listening.  They really enjoyed it and said that they wanted to do that more often.  So the next one I presented to them was Juan Diego.  One of the kids actually suggested that we do it as our play.  That’s where I got the idea from.  

TMB: What's something you learned from the experience?

BP: I learned a little bit more about my students’ personalities.  Some of them surprised me by their creativity and sense of humor.

‍