Sister is back in town!
Actress Kathy Cogan as Sister in the comedy, Late Nite Catechism. Photograph provided by Kathy Cogan.
Start at the Alvina Krause Theatre, head down Center Street, turn left onto East 3rd Street, and you’ll find the St. Columba Catholic School building. In 1954, the sisters of Saint Cyril and Methodius founded the school. For 70 years, the school educated children from pre-school through middle school. However, dwindling enrollment caused the school to close in 2024.
It is this shifting world that Late Nite Catechism depicts, said star Kathy Cogan. The comedy, coming to BTE on Saturday, follows a nun simply called Sister during her shift substitute teaching Father Murphy’s catechism class. Sister can’t help reminiscing about her days teaching at a Catholic school. “In the 1950s, Catholicism was the largest religion in the world,” she explained, “and then Vatican II happened in the 1960s. They didn’t explain why these changes were made and it ended up alienating followers.”
Vatican II was a council tasked by Pope John XXIII to spiritually renew and modernize the Catholic Church.*
“She was a Vatican I nun, that’s when Mass was said in Latin, the priest faced away from his congregation, and women needed to wear hats in church. It was 52 kids in a classroom and her,” said Cogan. One part of Sister’s motivations is to explain why the Catholic Church made those changes in the hopes people will come back to the Church and the schools. Cogan said that at Sister’s core is a desire to care for other people.
And Cogan would know, having starred in Late Nite Catechism on-and-off for almost 27 years. She held the role in New York City, Philadelphia, and Atlantic City and launched the national tour. Despite what some audience members might believe, Cogan is not actually a nun. But she has essentially been preparing for the role her whole life, thanks to an admiration formed during her days as a Catholic schoolgirl.
“The nuns were amazing. They didn’t walk, they floated,” Cogan said. She would create her habit at home using half a Quaker Oats cardboard cylinder, a towel as veil, and wrapped her rosary beads around the belt of her mother’s robe. The ensemble remains a key part of her process of getting into character. “I have to iron my own outfit. As I iron, I sink into the habit and Sister.”
She told me that often the people she joked around with only twenty minutes before immediately started calling her Sister the minute they saw her in the habit.
A friend even told her, “I forgot that was you,” after watching her perform. Another time, she walked into two people fiercely debating over if the nun they just watched was real or not in the ladies’ room after a performance. They didn’t recognize her. “I washed my hands, opened the door, looked at them and said, ‘Yeah, she’s not a nun’ and then I walked out.”
How often does a Broadway show with one of the original actors come to your local theatre? I’m guessing not often. You can see Kathy Cogan as Sister this Saturday at 1:00 and 7:00 PM at the Alvina Krause Theatre, so get your tickets to Late Nite Catechism TODAY at bte.org!
*Britannica Editors. "Second Vatican Council". Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Feb. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/event/Second-Vatican-Council. Accessed 29 April 2026.
