Sister Act on Tour
Crime meets Catholicism in this boisterous and soulful musical adaptation of the 1992 film in which Whoopi Goldberg starred as a nun on the run. Revised in 2019 to feature a more mature lead character, the reborn Sister Act will have audiences alternating cries of "Hail Mary!" and "Hallelujah!"
With music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Glenn Slater, Sister Act had its Broadway premiere in 2011. The show earned five Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical and Best Actress in a Musical (Patina Miller), and ran for 561 performances. In late 2019 it was announced that Whoopi Goldberg would assume the lead role of disco diva Deloris Van Cartier in 2020 for a limited number of London performances. Goldberg also announced that Brenda Edwards would go on tour in the role of Deloris as rewritten for an older actor. Edwards, as it happened, had been rejected for the same role after auditioning for the original West End premiere of the musical more than a decade earlier. She has appeared previously in We Will Rock You, Chicago and Carousel.
Sister Act Background
A habit becomes a hideout when nightclub singer Deloris Van Cartier enters a unique witness protection program after seeing her gangster boyfriend commit a murder. Composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater's songs pay affectionate and witty tribute to the sounds of the '60s and '70s, and the heroine's monastic retreat among The Holy Order of the Little Sisters of Our Mother of Perpetual Faith provides numerous opportunities for tuneful confessions that scamper between Motown, Philly soul, funk, disco and steamy R&B. After struggling to fit into the order, Deloris finally finds her true place in its choir.
Reviewing Sister Act's Broadway premiere, the New York Post's Elisabeth Vincentelli wrote, "Big, glitzy numbers are the toast of Broadway musicals. The only thing better? Big, glitzy numbers...with nuns!" The musical has also inspired a somewhat surreal side project: nearly 1,000 people donned habits in 2009 for the first annual Sister Act Nuns Run, which earned approximately £30,000 for charity.
