Sister Act- Reminiscence
I had the great privilege of being in Sister Act The Musical at Quad City Music Guild this past August.
Based on the 1992 movie, the story follows lounge singer Delores Van Cartier. This was the role that was originated by Whoopi Goldberg in the fish out of water comedy that got a PG rating even though it had a brutal murder in the first twenty minutes, and thus Disney distributed it through its Touchstone Pictures division. She walks into her boyfriend's night club just as he is carrying out a hit on one of his own henchmen. Of course she runs. Of course she goes to the police. And of course she winds up in a convent. A fish out of water. And with the addition of the Mother Superior, who is old school, orthodox Catholic, and presses back against the changes Delores suggests they make with their convent's choir, we wind up with a screwball comedy of sorts, as well as a prevailing against all odds comedy.
The choir at Queen of Angels Parish has been languishing. With Delores, in the disguise of Sister Mary Clarence, taking over the duties of conducting the choir, the church; which as been losing money and congregation; starts to turn around. People come in off the street to watch them sing.
I should mention at this point that none of the songs from the 1992 movie starring Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy Najimy, and Harvey Keitel are featured in the musical. And I knew this as soon as I bought the soundtrack this past March.
Yes, it was an acquired taste. Yes, I found myself scratching my head and wondering why they had moved the action from 1992 to 1977-1978. I think it was to indulge Alan Menken, who had always wanted to do a disco musical. He could really write his own ticket after everything he's done. He could pick any plot he wanted and just apply a disco soundtrack. It just so happened that he was presented with the plot of Sister Act.
The musical, which lost the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2011 to Book of Mormon, has about five or six very hummable songs, including "Take Me to Heaven," "Fabulous," the reprise of "Take Me to Heaven," "Sunday Morning Fever," "Raise Your Voice," and "Spread the Love Around." I'll admit I did go out to the audience and watch the nuns sing.
Now, to be honest, the first half hour of the show drags. The book writer seems determined to put as much effort into the set up as the movie. So as much as I loved the production, it doesn't hit the ground running. The actors do great. But there has to be a long stretch where Delores just can't find her place. Her boyfriend won't let her sing in his club. The police officer who protects her unceremoniously dumps her off in a convent. (That said, there is no doubt that this action is an act of love.) Once in the convent, the Mother Superior sets rigid expecations that make it clear what an outlier she is in their orbit. For having dated a married man and not gotten her music career off the ground. As the story lumbers along through arresting the mobster Curtis, having Delores push back against the no sex, no booze, no fun rules of the convent, I began to get ancy. I wanted to hear the nuns sing, and sing beautifully. So I kind of did fiddle my thumbs backstage until they finally got to the musical number "Raise Your Voice."
Finally! At "Raise Your Voice," Delores, as Sister Mary Clarence, is presented with the opportunity to sing some soul. It's so absorbed with being club disco, it sort of lost its way from soul. Until "Raise Your Voice." At that moment, it finally achieves very good status. At that point, the show emerges from cookie cutter disco nun musical to a gospel worship disco nun musical.
The nuns start to raise their unique voices. And the show gains momentum here. Abbey Donaho as Sister Mary Robert the postulate, gets to find out that she actually has a very beautiful voice. And Abbey Donaho does have a very beautiful voice! At that point, we get to hear Marissa Elliot as Sister Mary Patrick sing clear high notes and in unison with the other nuns.
Is it okay that I say that the first half of the play sort of over-emphasized the one-joke that the nuns can't sing?
It was funny when they sang with such dissonance during their first entrance. It was a good joke. And a few more times, when the monsignor and the mother superior made jokes about the lack of choral abilities, I laughed, chuckled, or chortled. But I realized taht they could have spent less time dumping on the nuns, we already knew they sang badly from that one stage entrance of the nuns in about the fifth scene; and just let their turn around in "Take Me to Heaven," and Act 2's "Sunday Morning Fever" speak for itself.
There seemed to be a lot of pressure on the bookwriter of Sister Act to insert punchlines. To the effect that certain jokes got recycled. To an extent, the effect worked. But the overt insistence that the church was heading south and the nuns didn't have a prayer became repetitive, and quite frankly, I would have gotten a little bored myself with much of the first act of the show.
Chelsea Ward was an excellent Sister Mary Clarence/Delores. She was tuned in. Her Whoopi Goldberg-esque jokes were the most lively, peppery parts of the script. There, it soared. There, I was left wanting more. There, I sat back and enjoyed myself.
But oh, I had to play a villain. Robbie Greve, Matt Downey, and myself I think brought some degree of innocence to our characters by making them dumber than a box of rocks.
We had to sing sort of a morbid song, "When I Find My Baby." It was fun to dance and sing to, as long as we weren't thinking about the words. Matt Downey seemed to be metaphorically tugging at his collar a few times, and literally tugging at his collar, as we sang lyrics about all the different ways we could murder Deloris.
As we go through a long laundry list of murders, I was beginning to worry that this show was setting a tone for minimizing murder to a comedy punchline. It was, after all, cruelty towards women, right? In the woke era, that can't really gain the same laughs as it might have in previous years, right? Heck, in previous years, that humor would be received as black comedy, right? Why so buoyant? Why invite the cast to laugh? I kind of didn't like it when it got a loud reception of laughter at the rehearsals.
I was kind of privately relieved that the audience didn't seem to fall in love with that musical number. I was kind of relieved that we got tepid applause, much as we worked very hard for audience applause from fine-tuning our singing and dance.
It just felt strange singing about how this black lounge act singer had it coming to her for going and walking in on a murder she shouldn't have seen, and then going and reporting it to the police, never mind the fact she probably was facing murder at the hand of Curtis' either way, whether she honored his request for silence, or actively was a whistleblower. He was never going to trust her.
Suffice it to say, I thought the first act occupied a large amount of time. The musical people were paying to see was the nuns singing gospel worship.
Did they get that with Sister Act?
(Making the libra symbol with arms and hands, throwing the left and right hand balance up and down.)
Ehhhh...
Some people complained that they didn't recognize the songs. And I can understand that. They were all new. They didn't stick in my head after hearing them the first time.
And the songs were more pop and disco and 70's glam than confident worship.
Which means the play was aiming to please all four quadrants, by refusing to give in to any overarching faith-based message.
Maybe that was prudent, as many faith based film and television projects can't help but come across as preachy, prosthelytizing, come to Jesus musical.
I get that it would have felt conservative and evangelical. But that said, it was hard to find the work's soul.
Was it able to find its heart? Yes. I actually appreciated its existentialist moments, whether singing worship pieces was being a Christian, or being human, or both. Sister Mary Clarence and Mother Superior debated that at length. And kind of agreed they could see value for different purposes as a result of going to church, reading scripture, worshipping, and singing liturgical hymns. It brings us together as family. It serves father God. And those two approaches aren't mutually exclusive.
Accommodating both philosophies buyed Sister Act from being a 2 and 3/4th star appendage of a musical that I was never going to enjoy that much into a musical from which I take some fond memories, and will miss some elements of. It's a 3 and 1/4th star piece, for now. Here's where it fits into my Music Guild resume.
1. Children of Eden
2. Meet Me in St. Louis
3. Jesus Christ Superstar
4. Oklahoma
5. Little Women
6. Peter Pan
7. It's a Wonderful Life
8. Mary Poppins
9. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
10. The Scarlet Pimpernel
11. Sister Act
12. Damn Yankees
13. George M!
14. Sunset Boulevard
15. All Shook Up!
I found the potentially sexist undertones of my two villain songs off-putting. I'm glad Tim Dominicus played the villain. He made some off-putting moments palatable by playing them tongue in cheek. He has a Sondheimesque strength to him to show deadpan irony in delivery of material that, by its nature, should be shocking.
But it was the nuns who stole the show. I demand that they get the majority of the credit for Sister Act being as big of a success as it was. Michelle Steen brought urgency to Sister Mary Martin-of-Tours when she had psychotic episodes, and the reactions of the other nuns made her outbursts hilarious! I was thrilled that she was my sparring partner in the scene where I entered the convent, as Pablo, along with T.J., Joey, and Curtis, to ransack and make off with Delores. It was great that my character's exaggerated anger was functioning with the purpose of setting up Michelle Steen for some screwball comic relief, as she translated my dialogue to English, replicating my character along with it, and then knocking me senseless with my own gun.
I liked the cast parties, the walking tacos, the barbecued shredded chicken sandwiches, the philly cheesesteaks, and the trips to Granite City, Old Chicago, Buffalo Wild Wings, Whitey's, and Los Agaves. It was good to be back in a Music Guild show again.
And yes, if they did do a stage musical adaptation of Sister Act 2, Back in the Habit, I'd be happy to show up for auditions. Though I would hope that my character's not back, and that I'd have the opportunity to play a different role. :)
Based on the 1992 movie, the story follows lounge singer Delores Van Cartier. This was the role that was originated by Whoopi Goldberg in the fish out of water comedy that got a PG rating even though it had a brutal murder in the first twenty minutes, and thus Disney distributed it through its Touchstone Pictures division. She walks into her boyfriend's night club just as he is carrying out a hit on one of his own henchmen. Of course she runs. Of course she goes to the police. And of course she winds up in a convent. A fish out of water. And with the addition of the Mother Superior, who is old school, orthodox Catholic, and presses back against the changes Delores suggests they make with their convent's choir, we wind up with a screwball comedy of sorts, as well as a prevailing against all odds comedy.
The choir at Queen of Angels Parish has been languishing. With Delores, in the disguise of Sister Mary Clarence, taking over the duties of conducting the choir, the church; which as been losing money and congregation; starts to turn around. People come in off the street to watch them sing.
I should mention at this point that none of the songs from the 1992 movie starring Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy Najimy, and Harvey Keitel are featured in the musical. And I knew this as soon as I bought the soundtrack this past March.
Yes, it was an acquired taste. Yes, I found myself scratching my head and wondering why they had moved the action from 1992 to 1977-1978. I think it was to indulge Alan Menken, who had always wanted to do a disco musical. He could really write his own ticket after everything he's done. He could pick any plot he wanted and just apply a disco soundtrack. It just so happened that he was presented with the plot of Sister Act.
The musical, which lost the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2011 to Book of Mormon, has about five or six very hummable songs, including "Take Me to Heaven," "Fabulous," the reprise of "Take Me to Heaven," "Sunday Morning Fever," "Raise Your Voice," and "Spread the Love Around." I'll admit I did go out to the audience and watch the nuns sing.
Now, to be honest, the first half hour of the show drags. The book writer seems determined to put as much effort into the set up as the movie. So as much as I loved the production, it doesn't hit the ground running. The actors do great. But there has to be a long stretch where Delores just can't find her place. Her boyfriend won't let her sing in his club. The police officer who protects her unceremoniously dumps her off in a convent. (That said, there is no doubt that this action is an act of love.) Once in the convent, the Mother Superior sets rigid expecations that make it clear what an outlier she is in their orbit. For having dated a married man and not gotten her music career off the ground. As the story lumbers along through arresting the mobster Curtis, having Delores push back against the no sex, no booze, no fun rules of the convent, I began to get ancy. I wanted to hear the nuns sing, and sing beautifully. So I kind of did fiddle my thumbs backstage until they finally got to the musical number "Raise Your Voice."
Finally! At "Raise Your Voice," Delores, as Sister Mary Clarence, is presented with the opportunity to sing some soul. It's so absorbed with being club disco, it sort of lost its way from soul. Until "Raise Your Voice." At that moment, it finally achieves very good status. At that point, the show emerges from cookie cutter disco nun musical to a gospel worship disco nun musical.
The nuns start to raise their unique voices. And the show gains momentum here. Abbey Donaho as Sister Mary Robert the postulate, gets to find out that she actually has a very beautiful voice. And Abbey Donaho does have a very beautiful voice! At that point, we get to hear Marissa Elliot as Sister Mary Patrick sing clear high notes and in unison with the other nuns.
Is it okay that I say that the first half of the play sort of over-emphasized the one-joke that the nuns can't sing?
It was funny when they sang with such dissonance during their first entrance. It was a good joke. And a few more times, when the monsignor and the mother superior made jokes about the lack of choral abilities, I laughed, chuckled, or chortled. But I realized taht they could have spent less time dumping on the nuns, we already knew they sang badly from that one stage entrance of the nuns in about the fifth scene; and just let their turn around in "Take Me to Heaven," and Act 2's "Sunday Morning Fever" speak for itself.
There seemed to be a lot of pressure on the bookwriter of Sister Act to insert punchlines. To the effect that certain jokes got recycled. To an extent, the effect worked. But the overt insistence that the church was heading south and the nuns didn't have a prayer became repetitive, and quite frankly, I would have gotten a little bored myself with much of the first act of the show.
Chelsea Ward was an excellent Sister Mary Clarence/Delores. She was tuned in. Her Whoopi Goldberg-esque jokes were the most lively, peppery parts of the script. There, it soared. There, I was left wanting more. There, I sat back and enjoyed myself.
But oh, I had to play a villain. Robbie Greve, Matt Downey, and myself I think brought some degree of innocence to our characters by making them dumber than a box of rocks.
We had to sing sort of a morbid song, "When I Find My Baby." It was fun to dance and sing to, as long as we weren't thinking about the words. Matt Downey seemed to be metaphorically tugging at his collar a few times, and literally tugging at his collar, as we sang lyrics about all the different ways we could murder Deloris.
As we go through a long laundry list of murders, I was beginning to worry that this show was setting a tone for minimizing murder to a comedy punchline. It was, after all, cruelty towards women, right? In the woke era, that can't really gain the same laughs as it might have in previous years, right? Heck, in previous years, that humor would be received as black comedy, right? Why so buoyant? Why invite the cast to laugh? I kind of didn't like it when it got a loud reception of laughter at the rehearsals.
I was kind of privately relieved that the audience didn't seem to fall in love with that musical number. I was kind of relieved that we got tepid applause, much as we worked very hard for audience applause from fine-tuning our singing and dance.
It just felt strange singing about how this black lounge act singer had it coming to her for going and walking in on a murder she shouldn't have seen, and then going and reporting it to the police, never mind the fact she probably was facing murder at the hand of Curtis' either way, whether she honored his request for silence, or actively was a whistleblower. He was never going to trust her.
Suffice it to say, I thought the first act occupied a large amount of time. The musical people were paying to see was the nuns singing gospel worship.
Did they get that with Sister Act?
(Making the libra symbol with arms and hands, throwing the left and right hand balance up and down.)
Ehhhh...
Some people complained that they didn't recognize the songs. And I can understand that. They were all new. They didn't stick in my head after hearing them the first time.
And the songs were more pop and disco and 70's glam than confident worship.
Which means the play was aiming to please all four quadrants, by refusing to give in to any overarching faith-based message.
Maybe that was prudent, as many faith based film and television projects can't help but come across as preachy, prosthelytizing, come to Jesus musical.
I get that it would have felt conservative and evangelical. But that said, it was hard to find the work's soul.
Was it able to find its heart? Yes. I actually appreciated its existentialist moments, whether singing worship pieces was being a Christian, or being human, or both. Sister Mary Clarence and Mother Superior debated that at length. And kind of agreed they could see value for different purposes as a result of going to church, reading scripture, worshipping, and singing liturgical hymns. It brings us together as family. It serves father God. And those two approaches aren't mutually exclusive.
Accommodating both philosophies buyed Sister Act from being a 2 and 3/4th star appendage of a musical that I was never going to enjoy that much into a musical from which I take some fond memories, and will miss some elements of. It's a 3 and 1/4th star piece, for now. Here's where it fits into my Music Guild resume.
1. Children of Eden
2. Meet Me in St. Louis
3. Jesus Christ Superstar
4. Oklahoma
5. Little Women
6. Peter Pan
7. It's a Wonderful Life
8. Mary Poppins
9. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
10. The Scarlet Pimpernel
11. Sister Act
12. Damn Yankees
13. George M!
14. Sunset Boulevard
15. All Shook Up!
I found the potentially sexist undertones of my two villain songs off-putting. I'm glad Tim Dominicus played the villain. He made some off-putting moments palatable by playing them tongue in cheek. He has a Sondheimesque strength to him to show deadpan irony in delivery of material that, by its nature, should be shocking.
But it was the nuns who stole the show. I demand that they get the majority of the credit for Sister Act being as big of a success as it was. Michelle Steen brought urgency to Sister Mary Martin-of-Tours when she had psychotic episodes, and the reactions of the other nuns made her outbursts hilarious! I was thrilled that she was my sparring partner in the scene where I entered the convent, as Pablo, along with T.J., Joey, and Curtis, to ransack and make off with Delores. It was great that my character's exaggerated anger was functioning with the purpose of setting up Michelle Steen for some screwball comic relief, as she translated my dialogue to English, replicating my character along with it, and then knocking me senseless with my own gun.
I liked the cast parties, the walking tacos, the barbecued shredded chicken sandwiches, the philly cheesesteaks, and the trips to Granite City, Old Chicago, Buffalo Wild Wings, Whitey's, and Los Agaves. It was good to be back in a Music Guild show again.
And yes, if they did do a stage musical adaptation of Sister Act 2, Back in the Habit, I'd be happy to show up for auditions. Though I would hope that my character's not back, and that I'd have the opportunity to play a different role. :)