Five Minutes of Heaven

Adapted by Michael Egan from Guy Hibbert’s award-winning screenplay
Saturday September 26 at 1:30pm (Zoom)
Sunday September 27 at 1:30pm (Zoom)
(times are 7:30PM BST/IST)

After the performance there will be a post-show conversation with Guy Hibbert, Michael Egan, Donna Minter from the MN Peacebuilding Institute, and the actors.

Five Minutes of Heaven is a play about violence and reconciliation. The first part occurs in 1975 during the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland and is based on an actual event when Alistair Little, a 17-year-old member of the Protestant Ulster Volunteer Force murdered Jim Griffin, a 19-year-old Catholic man. Griffin’s younger brother Joe, who was 11 at the time, witnessed the killing. Little then goes to prison for 12 years and after being released becomes a speaker and facilitator for anti-violence, restorative justice and peace and reconciliation. The second part is a fiction which takes place forty-five years later, when a TV program about reconciliation in Northern Ireland comes up with the idea to film a meeting between Little and the Joe Griffin.

Directed by Illusion’s Producing Director Michael Robins.

Performances are free but registration is required. Tickets will close for sale one hour before performance (12:30pm CST).

Illusion Theater is partnering with MN Peacebuilding Leadership Institute for this production.

A message from MN Peacebuilding: When terrible things happen, like COVID-19, police brutality, and racism, our peace is stolen from us. Most people want to build peace into their lives. However, often people get their basic human need for justice confused with impulses to seek revenge. At Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute we teach people how to build peace into their lives and communities with positive productive alternatives to revenge to satisfy their basic human need for justice toward the possibility of reconciliation.