Laughter on the 23rd Floor is based on Neil Simon’s real experiences as a comedy writer for Your Show of Shows, with some (now) pretty famous co-workers. Here is a breakdown of the characters and their real-life counterparts.

From Wikipedia

A behind-the-scenes peak at what the set will look like for Laughter on the 23rd Floor! Opens June 1st

artsorbit:

The gripping nature of the play comes from the fact that the audience can never be sure of anything. Is Beauvier an intolerant representative of the old Catholic order out to get rid of anyone with new ideas, or is she truly concerned about the student with legitimate suspicions and knows full well that the male-dominated Church hierarchy will suppress any effort to expose a pedophile priest? Is Flynn a good-hearted priest who is reaching out to a troubled boy whose father regularly beats him…or is he a predator who has chosen a vulnerable target for a criminal sexual relationship?

“In the pursuit of wrong doing, one takes a step away from God,” is a line from the play that demonstrates Beauvier’s quandary. She feels compelled to both lie and make threats to stop this man she believes is a predator, but she also lives with the possibility that she may be damaging an innocent man. Sister James vacillates. She desperately wants to believe Flynn’s denials, but she can’t shake her own suspicions. At one point, James cries out to Flynn that Beauvier’s admonishments about teaching methods ruined her love of teaching—but is it Beauvier’s strict ideas about education that bother her, or is it the fact that Beauvier made her face a possible evil when she would prefer to be ignorant?

keep reading Bev Wolfe’s review of the Park Square Theatre production of Doubt

Fashion from 1964

Doubt deals with hierarchy of the Catholic Church, which can be confusing. On the right side of the graphic you will find a basic break-down of the order of each title. (The left is an explanation of the process of choosing the next Pope.)

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