More than 13 years ago, Chicago actress Maripat Donovan used her Catholic school experiences as the creative inspiration for a one-woman comedy called Late Night Catechism. In it, she plays a nun who teaches an evening catechism class to a roomful of students — the audience. Her benevolent teaching style and pleasant demeanor rapidly deteriorates until she becomes a nit-picky taskmaster who's ready to dole out discipline at the drop of a hat. A newer spin-off, Sister's Christmas Catechism: The Mystery of the Magi's Gold, puts the sister on the case, where she uses CSI-style techniques to figure out what happened to the gold that went missing from the manger. In the midst of her investigations, she leads her "class" through a history lesson on nativity sets, provides a line-by-line analysis of various Christmas carols, discusses seasonal traditions, and directs a living nativity in an attempt to recreate the scene of the crime. See Sister's Christmas Catechism at Largo Cultural Center this weekend. 8 p.m. Fri., 2 and 8 p.m. Sat., Dec. 21-22, 105 Central Park Drive, Largo, $32 V.I.P./$29 general/$25 seniors/$15 students 19 and younger, 727-587-6793, largoarts.com.
