Last week I went to GEVA for the first time in quite awhile. Upon the recommendation of a couple of friends, I saw Miracle on South Division Street. One friend who recommended it said that it reminded her of my work because Tom Dudzick, the playwright, took a real landmark in Buffalo and created a fictional story around it, as I try to do with Rochester landmarks. Previously, Dudzick turned his family home in Buffalo into a play entitled Over the Tavern, and, Buffalo’s The Our Lady of Seneca Street Shrine is the inspiration for this play. According to Dramaturg Becca Poccia, Dudzick remembered the shrine from his childhood and went back to do some research about it. The story, while interesting, did not have enough drama to turn into a play, so he invented a new story. A story that reveals a larger truth. A story that seems so real that audiences laugh and cry over it. To me, that’s the real miracle. I’m as baffled as anybody about how the creative process works, but I have experienced it. What a thrill it is to sit down with an idea or only part of an idea and watch it turn into something larger, something better, something truer. Dudzick is a master at this. The play has closed now at GEVA, but you must see it if it returns or plays somewhere else. Be a witness to a miracle.