The Savannah Disputation

Playwright Evan Smith, who grew up Catholic in Savannah, Ga., came from a family that “utterly ignored” non-Catholic religious denominations. But it’s the realization of a much larger world that fuels the interesting perspective on religion in Smith’s 2007 comedy The Savannah Disputation.Set in the playwright’s hometown, the play is a comic theological debate between an elderly Catholic woman (along with her more gentle sister), a local priest and a door-to-door Pentecostal. The four-person ensemble comedy features Jamieson Hawkins as Melissa, a self-described Catholic missionaryor, rather, since she is Pentecostal, “a missionary to Catholics.” Melissa looks to convert two sisters in Savannah.