Cherie Gil: In Doubt on June 30

Doubt, the most acclaimed play on Broadway today, will be staged in Cebu at Onstage! Ayala Cinema 1 from June 30 to July 1. Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama and the 2005 Tony Award for Best Play, John Patrick Shanley's Doubt has been hailed as the most compelling and magnificently crafted piece of drama to hit the Broadway stage in years. It is still currently running at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway and this year alone it is set to run in over 25 countries around the world including Taiwan, Japan, Chile, New Zealand, most of Europe and America - emphasizing the remarkable global appeal of the play.

The Wall Street Journal states that Doubt is "the best new play of the season. That rarity of rarities, an issue-driven play that is unpreachy, thought-provoking, and so full of high drama that the audience with which I saw it gasped out loud a half-dozen times at its startling twists and turns."

Set in the Bronx in 1964, Doubt tells the story of a Roman Catholic school principal Sister Aloysius (Cherie Gil) - a woman with a reputation for tenacity and flinty resolve who inhabits a world of black-and-white, truth and lies. When she begins to have doubts about the nature of a relationship between parish priest Father Flynn (Niccolo Manahan) and a young black student she sets out, with steely determination, to trap him.

Despite the protestations of the boy's mother, the disbelief of a novice, the weight of the Church authorities and the denials of the priest himself, she will not be swayed from her convictions. Is she driven by the strength of her faith or unjustly persecuting him?

While writing Doubt, playwright John Patrick Shanley (recipient of the 1998 Best Original Screenplay Oscar for the movie Moonstruck) drew inspiration from his own childhood experiences.

"I went to a church in the Bronx in 1964. It was such a specific world that has now vanished, a world involving the Sisters of Charity, who dressed in black robes and black bonnets. More recently, the world around me started to remind me in certain key ways of this time - of people of conviction and people who weren't certain, at odds with each other and their power struggle."

In her return to the stage after 20 years, movie and television star Cherie Gil plays the pivotal role of Sister Aloysius. Father Flynn will be played by Niccolo Manahan, with Jay Glorioso and Cathy Azanza rounding up the cast.

Chari Arespacochaga will direct this Philippine premiere production of Doubt, which will run in Manila for four weekends in June, after which it will be brought to Cebu by local theater group Little Boy Productions for a limited engagement on June 30, July 1 and 2 at the Onstage! Ayala Cinema 1, Ayala Center - Cebu. Show schedules are Friday and Saturday at 8:00 PM, with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 3:00 PM. Ticket prices are 300, 400, and 600 pesos, with student discounts available. For inquiries, please contact Little Boy Productions at 0917-815 5794 or the Arts Council of Cebu at 233-0236. Tickets are available at East,West Café in Ayala, and at Citickets.