‘Late Night Catechism’ puts on its Easter bonnet

“Sister’s Easter Catechism: Will My Bunny Go To Heaven?”: It’s that time of year where our thoughts turn to chocolate.

Easter bunnies.

So to help celebrate the part of this season that focuses on sweets and rabbits, let’s spend time with the Sister.

The Sister will share her answers and wisdom on such topics as “Why isn’t Easter the same day every year like Christmas?” and “Will My Bunny Go To Heaven?”

“Sister’s Easter Catechism” is the latest in the “Late Night Catechism” series and is being presented at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts.

This interactive pageant of sinful fun — classroom participation is a must — has Sister unearthing the origins of Easter bunnies, Easter eggs, Easter bonnets, Easter baskets, and — yes — yummy Easter Peeps.

So come and be called on as Sister strikes again.

“Sister’s Easter Catechism: Will My Bunny Go To Heaven?” will be presented at 7:30 p.m. April 17 through 19 at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts, 565 Camano Ave., Langley.

Tickets are $25. For more information go to www.WICAonline.com or call 360-221-8268 or 800-638-7631.

“Harvey”: This play is more than just a comedy about a giant invisible rabbit.

This play is a Pulitzer Prize piece of literature and is classic in that it asks the age old question: Who really is crazy?

In this case, is it Elwood Dowd who is friends with the giant rabbit? Or is it everyone around him?

“It still speaks to an audience because it talks about the same insecurities people have always had,” said director David Alan Morrison, an adjunct instructor in the drama department at Skagit Valley College.

The plot of this Driftwood Players Production has the likeable Elwood introducing his imaginary friend, Harvey, a 6-foot, 3 1/2-inch-tall rabbit, to friends and family at a society party. Harvey is a pooka, a mythological creature.

Elwood’s society-obsessed sister, Veta, can no longer tolerate her brother’s eccentric behavior. She decides to have him committed to a sanitarium to spare her daughter, Myrtle Mae, and their family from future embarrassment.

When they arrive at the sanitarium, due to a comedy of errors, the doctors commit Veta instead of Elwood.

“Harvey” was made into a 1950 film starring Jimmy Stewart, whose portrayal earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

Instead of trying to imitate Stewart, actor Keith Remon does his own thing as Elwood, Morrison said.

“He’s such a talented guy and he’s going to town with it,” Morrison said. “Keith is playing a very childlike Elwood who is in awe of the world around him.

“It’s a very challenging role and he’s doing a remarkable job with it. He’s playing it with just an enthralled, wide-eyed fascination.”

Also, to suit today’s audiences, Morrison added a bit more action into this show by allowing the set scene movers to carry on in little vignettes during scene changes so that they have “personal interactions among themselves,” Morrison said.

Morrison also added comedic bits as well, performed by some of the minor characters so there is more going on in general.

“I just love ‘Harvey’ and it’s one of the pure canons of the theater world,” Morrison said. “People are going to enjoy it but also understand where we’ve come from as people and Americans.”

“Harvey” opens at 8 tonight at Driftwood Players’s Wade James Theatre, 950 Main St., Edmonds. Performances are 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through April 22.

Tickets are $23 and $20. Call 425-774-9600 or online at www.driftwoodplayers.com.

Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424; goffredo@heraldnet.com.