Nun roles getting to be a habit for Naperville actress

Over the past decade, Naperville resident Lisa Braatz has played a teaching nun in “Late-Night Catechism,” a singing nun in “Nunsense” and now a nun in charge of putting together a holiday show in “Mother Superior's Ho-Ho-Holy Night” at the Royal George Theatre. In fact, she has donned the habit so frequently that she jokes, “I am worried I am being typecast.”

She comes by this specialty naturally. She survived 13 years of being taught by nuns at Catholic schools growing up in St. Louis, and she has the usual spectrum of relationships with those she met in the classroom. Some she cherishes, others … not so much.

“There was one nun,” Braatz says, “who made me cry in high school.”

Fast forward a few decades to an audition in Chicago, where Braatz was pursuing her childhood dream of a life in the theater.

“A director told me,” she recalls, “you would be great in ‘Late Night Catechism.'”

Braatz saw the show Vicki Quade's long-running one-woman homage to teaching nuns and wanted to give it a try.

“I sent in my resume every six months for four years,” Braatz says. Then she saw that Quade and company were opening a theater and a branch of “Late Night Catechism” in Naperville.

“I sent her a long letter that said, ‘At least you should let me audition.'” Braatz says. “I live in Naperville. I went to Catholic schools.”

Quade gave her that chance, and Braatz passed with flying colors.

That was eight years ago.

“I've done every show Quade wrote,” Braatz says. “I have been doing ‘Late-Night Catechism' for eight years. I have done ‘Put the Nuns in Charge' for four years. And now this one for two.”

As in all of Quade's shows, the premise of “Mother Superior's Ho-Ho-Holy Night” is simple enough to be done with one actor, but rich enough to hold up to multiple viewings.

“The idea is that the people are there at the theater for a holiday planning meeting,” Braatz says. “We are planning a Christmas pageant. And the nun I play has decided to blend the secular and the religious, the blending of Santa and Baby Jesus.”

Braatz says the show walks a “fine line between funny and disrespectful.”

“The funny thing is that real nuns love it,” she says.

Good thing, too. No one wants to run afoul of a nun.

• “Mother Superior's Ho-Ho-Holy Night” runs through Saturday, Dec. 25, at the Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted, Chicago. For tickets call (312) 988-9000 or go to nuns4fun.com.