The recently deceased American stage director, designer, and architect Robert Wilson (1941–2025) was famous for monumental, hypnotizing stage designs and a drastic reduction in gesture and action. Although far away from Catholic monasticism in his own daily life, his style had something "Cistercian" about it, and his interests consistently returned to the narrative forms of parable or folk tale. Howard Fishman noted that spiritual matters form the core of Wilson's work (1). 
The Temptation of St. Anthony, staged in 2003, was a treatment of Flaubert's 1874 novel. Wilson and Bernice Johnson Reagon, a founder and codirector of Sweet Honey in the Rock, joined forces to portray temptation and ascetic self-control in the life of the famous fourth-century hermit saint who is considerd "desert father" of Christian monasticism. 
Wilson's production explored the themes of faith, temptation, and perseverance in ascetic life. Also: must monastics live in isolation or should their Christian charity compel them to serve others?
The result is a more joyous production than one might have expected: "it's all about hope," said one performer.  Another religious aspect of Wilson's work is his extensive work with amateur performers. He founded “The Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds,” a loosely-organized group of volunteers and amateur performers who worked with him for nearly a decade. Catholic performance culture is almost always reliant on amateur performers. 
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Today (12 August) is the day of commemoration for Blessed Isidore Bakanja, who was introduced to Catholicism by Trappist monks in what was then a Belgian colony. They baptized him and catechized him at St. Eugene Parish, which was likely given that name as a reference to the Cistercian pope Eugene III.
The Trappists introduced African children, Isidore among them, to two popular devotions: the rosary and the Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel. For Belgian monks, these two devotions were standards, although few in today's Belgium would know what they are. Isidore gave his life for these devotions.
While working as a bricklayer, he was told by a Belgian plantation owner who hated Catholicism that he must remove the scapular from around his neck. When Isidore refused on several different occasions, he was repeatedy flogged, sustaining wounds that would kill him. 
Isidore is a reminder of a few things: first, Trappists were missionaries in Africa. They did not live in strict enclosure. They even taught in schools. In fact, it was a Trappist priest who visited Blessed Isidore as he was dying and gave him Divine Unction.
Second, missionaries may have cooperated with colonial enterprises in order to gain access to the unchurched, but they did not share the same ideological outlook. The plantation boss hated the faith and flew into a rage when he saw Isidore praying the rosary. Colonialists and missionaries are not to be regarded as one and the same group.

Nina Sontag (1811–1879) had a successful stage career in northern Germany before entering the Cistercian Abbey of Marienthal in 1846. She had first tried the Discalced Carmelites, but did not have the stamina for their severe penances. That may have been providential, since she had more opportunities to sing as Sister Juliane, her name as a Cistercian nun. 

This advertisement shows that she performed in Drury Lane Theater together with her sister Henriette in June, 1829. Nina was then only 17. Her career had begun even earlier: when she was 14 she had der debut as an opera singer in Berlin.

This photo shows a scene from Frank Rebitschek's modern play, Schwestern, which describes the relationship between Nina and her