✨ THE EDINBURGH FRINGE HAS SPOKEN. THE VATICAN? NOT QUITE YET. ✨

MOTHER, SUPERIOR
THE ACCLAIMED SOLO HOUR
ENCORE PERFORMANCE

✨ FRINGE ENCORE: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9 7PM ✨

HB Playwrights Theatre
124 Bank St, New York, NY 10014, USA

Fresh from an award-winning, critically acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe run—with recognition from The Times and The Scotsman—MOTHER, SUPERIOR returns home to New York for one special encore performance to answer the one question the critics couldn’t…

DOES GOD TAKE CALLS FROM GAY GUYS!?

NYC comedian and award-thirsty Fringe favorite Michael John Ciszewski is on the line, desperate to make his mother proud of him. Join him in the ultimate act of diva worship: an attempt to canonize his living mother as an immortal saint in one hour—of comedy. Will THAT do? Does the Pope shit in the woods!?

Hailed by critics as “stand-up at its most theatrical,” MOTHER, SUPERIOR is Ciszewski’s singular brand of comedy theatre at full tilt: a five-act hero’s journey built from stand-up, storytelling, pop culture, papal bureaucracy, audience participation, and one increasingly consequential customer-service call.

Over the course of “a kaleidoscopic hour” (BingeFringe), childhood memories become evidence, the audience becomes a congregation, and sainthood becomes yet another order we demand status updates on before the clock runs out.

It’s high-concept, deeply personal, meticulously theatricalized, and profoundly stupid—the kind of idiosyncratic comic spectacle that has become Ciszewski’s hallmark.

Beneath all the machinery is a surprisingly moving story about mothers and sons, queerness and faith, memory and legacy—and the impossible question of how you repay the person who made you who you are.

MOTHER, SUPERIOR left Edinburgh a Fringe Theatre Award winner, a BingeFringe Queer Performer’s Award shortlistee, and a show selected for historic preservation by the National Library of Scotland. The Scotsman named the show among the Best Edinburgh Fringe Comedy of 2026, while The Times listed it and Michael John among its Best Jokes & Funniest Comedians of the Fringe. Awards! Raves! Historic preservation! Surely that’s enough to get a woman canonized, right?

There’s only one way to find out.

One night only. COME TO CHURCH.

Michael John Ciszewski (he/him) is a Michael John Ciszewski is a New York City-based theatrical comedian specializing in profound gay stupidity.

His 2026 Edinburgh Fringe hit MOTHER, SUPERIOR earned a dozen five- and four-star reviews, including The Scotsman ("winningly charismatic") and BingeFringe ("deftly unafraid to make stand-up its most theatrical"), which also shortlisted him for a Queer Performer's Award.

Previous solo shows include LOVEFOOL (Staff Choice, 2024 NYC Fringe) and acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe debut IF MEMORY SERVES, which earned him Solo Performer of the Year from the Young-Howze Theatre Awards.

His debut solo show EVERYONE IS DYING AND SO AM I premiered in July 2019 and then enjoyed sold-out performances in Boston and at Manhattan's Theatre Row and United Solo Theatre Festival—spotlighting the best in international solo performance. It was subsequently nominated for the festival’s audience award. His second solo effort THE SUN IS SLEEPING was a full-length film composed at the start of the pandemic era that screened in virtual events from late 2020 into 2021.

His hit third solo hour LOVEFOOL premiered in 2022 and has since played in venues ranging from proscenium and black box theatres to comedy clubs and festival stages in New York City, Boston, Providence, Provincetown, Jersey City, and Philadelphia. In Summer 2023, it enjoyed an eight-date tour of the Northeast on which it was named a Critic’s Pick by the Provincetown Independent and sold out Brooklyn’s Pete’s Candy Store.  

Ciszewski’s fourth hour of comedy IF MEMORY SERVES debuted in February 2023 to a sold-out house in New York City before touring to Fort Lauderdale and Boston. In August 2024, it enjoyed a month-long run in Edinburgh, Scotland, presented by leading UK comedy producer Just the Tonic at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it was named the #50 top show of 3,600. 

Ciszewski performs at iconic NYC venues including the Stonewall Inn and Bowery Ballroom, and hosts long-running variety show TGIF (Testing Gay Ideas Funny). He's toured to London, Philadelphia, Boston, Provincetown, and Providence, trained at Boston University and LAMDA, and teaches storytelling with The Moth.

Recent acting credits include Justin Halle’s VILE ISLE at Lenfest Center for the Arts and BENT at Umbrella Center for the Arts.

Mother, Superior, Lovefool, and If Memory Serves are all available for booking by reaching out to admin@xomichaeljohn.com!