Father Kowalczyk pours heart and soul into community theater

Father Kyle Kowalczyk’s ministry as a priest includes a rather unique calling: writing plays and building community around Catholic theater. 

“I consider it an apostolate,” said Father Kowalczyk, whose latest stage effort, “Moonshine Abbey,” about monks making moonshine during Prohibition and a man discerning religious life disillusioned by these “bunch of bums,” will be performed Nov. 12-21 at St. Agnes School in St. Paul. “Some priests do retreats, talks, spiritual direction.” 

Father Kowalczyk writes plays. So far, 10 of them. And musicals, two and counting. And he co-founded the production company currently putting them on: Missed the Boat Theatre. It is a Catholic-based company without a theater to call home, but one that is happy and grateful to highlight St. Agnes and its Helene Houle Auditorium, which played host two years ago to Missed the Boat Theatre’s “Catholic Young Adults: The Musical,” also written by Father Kowalczyk. 

Theater has been in Father Kowalczyk’s blood since his days at Big Rapids High School in Big Rapids, Michigan, when he had roles in such plays as “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” and “Rutherford Wolf” (he played the lead role as a gentle, peace-loving vegetarian who raises a panic among various fairy tale characters because of wolves’ bad reputation). 

“I think it was an outlet for my creativity — (creativity) I didn’t know I had,” Father Kowalczyk, 40, told The Catholic Spirit during a rehearsal of “Moonshine Abbey.” “I think everyone has a God-given desire and a need to do something creative.”  

Energy and creativity of the theater came at a good time for him, around his sophomore year, Father Kowalczyk said, because it added focus to his life. He had floundered in eighth and ninth grade, playing the class clown and getting into trouble.  

“I don’t have to act out, I can act,” he decided. 

Drawn to humor 

A strong pull toward humor remains, and a desire to keep it clean. 

“It’s discouraging when humor is crass and cuss and salty jokes,” he said. “I always think, ‘You could have done better than that.’ Let’s make people laugh without making people cringe.” 

Humor aplenty is found in the CYA musical and in “Moonshine Abbey,” particularly the kind of inside jokes Catholics would understand, Father Kowalczyk said.  

“Part of my journey to the priesthood was in a monastery (on the East Coast),” he said. “Anybody watching this (“Moonshine”) will find it funny, a Catholic will think it’s funnier, a seminarian will understand even more references, and if you’ve ever been in a religious order, it’s game over.” 

“Moonshine Abbey” is set in the fictional Saint Hippolytus Abbey in an unnamed small town. But the idea of monks making moonshine during Prohibition is not fiction. The Benedictine monks of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville did just that, Father Kowalczyk’s research showed. And a 2007 book, “Minnesota 13: Stearns County’s Wet Wild Prohibition Days,” and a later documentary, “Minnesota 13: From Grain to Glass,” describe a prominent reason: Families in the region had to be fed. Moonshine might have been illegal, but to many, it was not immoral. Minnesota 13 refers to the premium quality corn whiskey distilled on many farms in Stearns County.  

Father Kowalczyk’s latest musical, with music by Sam Backman and direction by Mary Shaffer, was first performed in 2016 at The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul, when he was a transitional deacon. It has since been revised to include roles for women, which required a new subplot, he said. He wrote and directed two other plays at the seminary: “Saved by the Guillotine” and “Murder and Mariolatry” (excessive veneration of the Virgin Mary.)  

He is at work on another musical, and he is playing that one close to the vest. “Let’s just say it has to do with actuaries, fatal disease, lotteries and space travel,” he said. It is not driven by the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. 

Father Kowalczyk said he approaches writing as a hobby. How much time that hobby takes depends on the stage of development a play might be in. Sometimes he mulls over ideas as he does other tasks. Sometimes he spends a day at the computer. 

“If I have to write, I can sit down and write all day on it,” he said. 

Striving to remember who said it, Father Kowalczyk paraphrased Ernest Hemingway’s famous line, “The only kind of writing is rewriting.” His plays often go through 10 to 15 significant drafts.  

“Sometimes it flows,” he said. “It’s working and it’s good. Sometimes I think it’s good. But I will reread it and think, ‘This is terrible. Why did I think this was good?’ Or two weeks later, ‘Wow, did I write this? This is great!’” 

God-given 

There is something God-given in what he is doing, Father Kowalczyk said.  

“He’s given me some kind of talent. I think if it is not formulaic, if it is discovered, it’s not from me,” he said. “I find the ending. I don’t know how. I didn’t create it. It presented itself.” 

He knew when he was ordained in 2016 that he would continue to write.  

“I didn’t know that I would co-found a production company and produce plays,” he said. 

Archbishop Bernard Hebda has seen some of his plays, and often asks him “‘when is the next production?’” Father Kowalczyk said. “I take that as at least tacit approval.” 

Parishioners at St. Maximilian Kolbe also support the ministry, he said. At one point during the run of CYA: The Musical at St. Agnes, about 50 parishioners rented a bus together, ate dinner at a restaurant and took in the production.  

One production a year does not hamper his parish ministry, Father Kowalczyk said. One reason: He confines his work outside the parish to Missed the Boat Theatre and summer training camps for young adult leaders at St. Paul-based NET Ministries, where he once served, which puts on youth retreats across the country. 

“If I were doing three a year, they’d be like, Father, seriously?” he said. 

It’s also a ministry that goes beyond his ability to write entertaining plays with a Catholic flavor and message. “We want to foster a Catholic community by coming together to craft beautiful works of theater,” he said. “We want to pursue Catholic art and do it together.” 

To that end, each Monday of rehearsals the troupe celebrates a Mass and shares dinner before hitting the stage. “At the last show, people showed up who had never met each other, and before long they became best friends,” he said.  

One student said “this is the best experience of community that she’s had in four years of university,” Father Kowalczyk said.  

Missed the Boat Theatre attracts young professionals, particularly men and women who have not started a family and have time to give to a production, Father Kowalczyk said. But it also attracts performers and audience members of all ages, and it hopes to continue to broaden the spectrum of ages on stage, he said. 

Nikelle Morris, 50, of St. Vincent de Paul in Brooklyn Park, said she has participated in community theater over the years, and attended the CYA production. She now holds the female lead in “Moonshine Abbey,” that of the police captain. 

“I went to CYA,” she said. “We heard about it. The whole family went. It was amazing. It was so good.” Attracted by the production values and by the community she witnessed on stage, she decided then that, “I love this. I’m going to do this.” 

The most important part of her experience, Morris said, has been the shared faith. Father Kowalczyk emphasizes that sharing the faith and caring for one another and the broader community are the primary reasons the production company exists, she said.  

“The fact that every Monday we start with Mass is so great,” she said. “It orients us to the main reason we are here, which is to give glory to God and bring joy to people, if we can.”

‘MOONSHINE ABBEY’ 

St. Agnes School 

530 Lafond Ave., St. Paul  

7 p.m. Nov. 12-13  

2 p.m. Nov. 14 

7 p.m. Nov. 19-20 

2 p.m. Nov. 21 

Order tickets: 612-460-0720 or email at [email protected]