About the play:
This play is a compendium of great Christian women since the 3rd Century A.D. Presented with humor and poignancy are the stories of St. Helena, the mother of Constantine; Hildegaard of Bingen, Katie Luther; Lady Jane Grey; Susanna Wesley; Fannie Crosby; Aimee Semple McPherson; and Mother Teresa. Music or hymns connected with the characters, are suggested. This can be performed by a single actress (monologues), or by several women dividing up the monologues.

Cast: One to nine Women/Men
Time: 30 minutes to 2 hours.
Settings are various.

From the Script:
(KATHERINE VON BORA enters. Folding laundry.)
KATHERINE: You know about Luther, the apostate monk who posted 95 thesis on that door in Wittenberg, but do you know about his wife, Katie, the runaway Nun?

(She laughs.)

Poor man, there he was, the Peasants in revolt all around him, his Elector and patron Frederick just having died, and twelve wayward nuns to take care of—you see, we’d listened to what he had to say, and it made sense, so all twelve of us decided to join the protest.

MARTIN: I smuggled them out of the cloisters in empty herring barrels smelling of fish, with Duke George in hot pursuit. 12 Nuns smelling of fish. And they expected me to find them husbands.

KATIE: You see, my mother told me I had a sharp tongue, so at ten she had me shipped off to the convent.

MARTIN: A lot of good it did you.

KATIE: What was left of us fifteen years later he shipped off to the priory where he lived. Luther’s harem—him and his Nuns. He called us his “wretched little bunch.”

MARTIN: We were in the middle of a revolution of sorts and I was called on to become a matchmaker. No easy task. Most German girls married when they were 14 or 15. She was. . .

KATIE: Twenty six, and all we knew to do was to sing and pray. There wasn’t a real domestic in the bunch.

MARTIN: But I persevered. And I married them all off, all except one.

KATIE: The last one, the black sheep, the lame duck, the runt of a twelve cloistered litter. Me.

MARTIN: What about the merchant from Nuremberg?

KATIE: Him I would have married. Could of too, until he discovered I’d been a nun.

LUTHER: I found two more for you.

KATIE:Yes, the first was older than my father and the other, a Dr. Gratz, had had a stroke and the right side of his face had sort of . . . well, anyway, he had to carry a handkerchief to catch the drool.
(Beat.)
You know Martin, after those two you might not make such a bad husband yourself.

MARTIN: (To audience.) There you hear? That sounds like a proposal to me.

KATIE: All my life he accused me of proposing to him. I’d like to set the record straight, right now. We’ll take a vote. Here it is again: “After those two you might not make such a bad husband yourself.” Everyone who accounts that as a legitimate proposal, raise your hands.

About the playwright:
Gillette Elvgren has been writing for over thirty years, his plays have been produced by professional theatre companies throughout the United States and Canada. He is co-founder and resident playwright for Saltworks Theatre Company in Pittsburgh, PA. There have been approximately 8,000 performances of Elvgren scripts.

While a Professor at the University of Pittsburgh he was head of the M.F.A. directing program and staff director for the Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival. Presently he is a Professor in Theatre Arts at Regent University, Virginia Beach.