Miracle on South Division Street continues the season or premieres

If you’ve ever been a guest at a friend’s family event, you’ll feel right at home in the Miracle on South Division Street audience. The set-up is familiar. The show, written by Over the Tavern author Tom Dudzik, follows the Nowak family, a blue-collar Pittsburgh family.

When the show opens you’re in the Nowak dining room. I spent the first couple of minutes staring at the dining room chairs. I’m pretty sure we had the same chairs in our kitchen while I was growing up. The cabinets looked familiar too.

Miracle on South Division Street is that kind of play. As the characters enter the long-time family home, you meet people you recognize from your own neighborhood. The strong-willed matriarch (Clara) keeping the family history alive. Jimmy, a garbage collector with a secret of his own, is the family peacemaker. Eldest daughter Bev works in a ketchup bottling factory, a fact which becomes part of a joke later in the show. Younger daughter Ruth is an aspiring actress who has a different version of the family secret about the burst out.

The first act sets-up the family secret’s unveiling. The miracle is both the family’s secret and the family’s curse. Everything Clara does works to keep the miracle alive. Throughout the play the audience hears variations on the miracle story. Clara’s father saw the Blessed Mother in his barber shop one night. He built a shrine to the Blessed Mother in front of the family’s house. During the 70 years since the shrine opened, the Nowak family has guarded and maintained the shrine.

The shrine is both the family’s responsibility and its prestige. Described as “a beacon of hope to the neighbors,” the shrine is a living family member throughout the play. The audience quickly understands that the shrine was always at the family’s center. When the secret changes the shrine’s meaning, it affects everything the family thinks about its history and its future.

Miracle on South Division Street is a funny family play. Even if your family secrets aren’t as dramatic as the Miracle on South Division Street, you’ll recognize and laugh at the family dynamics.

Miracle on South Division Street is at the Theatre at the Center in Munster, IN. Performances run Wednesdays through Sundays through June 1. The Theatre at the Center is easily accessible from I-294 at the first exit after crossing the Indiana state line. For information about the show or to purchase tickets, visit www.theatreatthecenter.com.

Disclosure: I did receive media passes for the opening night. My words and opinions are my own.