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Synopsis When Disco diva Deloris Van Cartier witnesses a murder she is put in protective custody in the one place cops are sure she won't be found - a convent! Disguised as a nun, she finds herself at odds with both the rigid lifestyle and an up tight Mother Superior. Using her unique disco moves and singing talent to inspire the choir Deloris breaths new life into the church and community, but in doing so blows her cover. Soon the gang is giving chase only to find them up against Deloris and the power of her new found Sister Hood. Based on the smash-hit movie.
Patina Miller as Deloris van Cartier in Sister Act
Date: 3 June 2009
For the screen-to-stage crossover of Sister Act , it took Whoopi Goldberg and her co-producers at Stage Entertainment a year to find and cast 24-year-old American newcomer Patina Miller as Deloris van Cartier, the part played in the original 1992 film by Goldberg herself (See News, 30 Jan 2009). And judging by the morning’s reviews following the glitzy opening last night (2 June 2009, previews from 7 May) at the West End’s London Palladium, the casting was worth the time and effort. It seems a new star has well and truly been born.
Transplanted to 1970s Philadelphia, Sister Act tells the story of disco diva Deloris, who, after witnessing a murder and being put in protective police custody in a convent, brings some soul to the church choir, much to the initial consternation of the Mother Superior.
The 1992 Hollywood film of Sister Act grossed over $200million worldwide and spawned a sequel, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. The musical – which, in an earlier version in the US, was seen in Pasadena, California in 2006 and in Atlanta, Georgia in 2007 – has an original score by Alan Menken, best known for his work on Disney films like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, with lyrics by his long-time collaborator Glenn Slater. The book is by Cheri and Bill Steinkellner.
The production is directed by Peter Schneider, designed by Klara Zieglerova and choreographed by Anthony Van Laast, with musical supervision by Michael Kosarin, costumes by Lez Brotherston, sound by Mick Potter, lighting by Natasha Katz and musical direction by Nick Skilbeck.
Overnight critics varied widely in their judgements of Sister Act overall, from champions who declared it a “triumph” that’s all at once “strong, funny and touching” to detractors who dismissed it as “hideously formulaic” “one-trick pony”. But when it comes to casting matters, there’s little dispute: “the best thing about Sister Act is the leading lady”. According to critics, Patina Miller has “personality to burn and a smile as wide as Wembley Stadium”, “bundles of star quality”, “a wealth of raucous energy”, “a terrific voice”, “warmth, humour, vivacity, “comic vitality” and “a funky, spunky stage presence”. As many critics noted, the show’s last resident was The Sound of Music; with the help of overnight star Miller – “she might have been unknown last night, but today all that will have changed” – it looks like long runs with nuns at the Palladium may indeed be “habit-forming”.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (three stars) – “It’s good but not great, diverting not divine. The best thing about Sister Act is the leading lady, the number one nun Deloris van Cartier, played by Patina Miller with personality to burn and a smile as wide as Wembley Stadium … The joyous surprise of the Motown movie score is replaced by a jobbing funk and disco playlist by Disney and Little Shop composer Alan Menken with so-so lyrics by Glenn Slater and a book by Cheri and Bill Steinkellner (they produced and wrote some of Cheers) that makes The Sound of Music look like Noel Coward. It’s a one-trick pony, this show, with nowhere special to go once the nuns have shown they can get down on the dance floor as soon as get down on their knees … Peter Schneider’s production maintains a fizzing energy that is slightly too exhausting for comfort, and the sound system is wonky. But songs like ‘Take Me to Heaven’, ‘Bless Our Show’ and ‘Spread the Love Around’ will send audiences home happy enough.”
Fiona Mountford in the Evening Standard (four stars) – “It's been done before, the reasoning might have gone, so why not do it again? Put a singing nun centre stage in a musical and watch the piece climb every mountain ... Whether or not divine intervention is involved, it’s a wimple-wibbling, habit-forming triumph ... Before Peter Schneider’s production builds up the unstoppable head of momentum that led to the quickest standing ovation I’ve ever seen on a West End first night, there are some dubious early moments. The hand-knitted charm of the film is ditched in favour of a far raunchier look, with Deloris (Patina Miller), overly full of attitude initially, and her low-life chums transposed into a Seventies blaxploitation aesthetic ... Once we find Sheila Hancock’s delightfully droll Mother Superior (‘God has brought you to this place: take the hint’) waiting for Deloris, sorry, Sister Mary Clarence, things take a distinct turn for the heavenly. Alan Menken’s attractive, gospel-inflected score kicks in ... Helped along by Anthony Van Laast’s energetic choreography ... There can be no disputing the evening’s main draw: 24-year-old Miller, who fills this huge stage with so many bundles of star quality that another dressing room will surely have to be found for them all. Her magnificent voice is rich, soaring and, crucially, unflagging. She might have been unknown last night, but today all that will have changed. Take it away, sisters.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (two stars) – “Singing nuns are becoming a standard feature at this secular venue. But the showbiz rockers of this noisily aggressive musical, co-produced by Whoopi Goldberg, are a world away from the cloistered charmers of The Sound of Music. What we have here is a show that feels less like a personally driven work of art than a commercial exploitation of an existing franchise ... What was originally a fairytale fantasy, however, makes little sense in its new, vulgarised incarnation ... In order to pad out a slight story, every key member of the cast also has to be given a number ... Alan Menken's music admittedly has a pounding effectiveness and the opening number, ‘Take Me to Heaven’, is skillfully turned into a hymn to religious, rather than sensual, ecstasy. Patina Miller invests Deloris with a wealth of raucous energy and just about convinces in her conversion from fame-seeking individualist to member of the singing sorority. Sheila Hancock lends the show some needed gravitas as the Mother Superior ... All too typically the nuns, in Anthony van Laast's choreography, kick up their heels like the Rockettes and prance around in gilt vestments that might be described as surplice to requirements.
Benedict Nightingale in The Times (three stars) – “And still they come, those musical stagings of favourite movies: Billy Elliot, Dirty Dancing, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and now Sister Act, with its original star, Whoopi Goldberg, transformed into its producer. Actually, the young American actress who replaces her as the songstress in a habit, Patina Miller, is the show’s great plus. Otherwise, a rather sweet, sentimental film has been hyped up, coarsened, given what — were the Palladium flown to Times Square — we’d call the big, brash Broadway treatment ... The film’s point was that Deloris liberates the nuns’ voices while they liberate her spirit. She puts modern soul into their Salve Regina, they put Salve Regina into her modern soul. But there’s no gentle piety here ... There’s less deft comedy, but much more music, most of it indebted to the 1970s, where the action is now set. That lets Alan Menken, the composer, have a lot of catchy fun with period rock and disco ... And that lets Patina Miller display the first of her star qualities, a terrific voice. Add warmth, humour, vivacity — and you’ve a star who lacks Whoopi’s wry vulnerability but adds dazzle to the razzle around her.”
Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail (two stars) – “Call me a miserable old monk but I hated Sister Act. I hated its artistic laziness, its predictability, its incuriosity, its idea that disco is divine and that spirituality can never be found in discreet and dignified worship. This noisy, pumpy, insistently American musical will doubtless be a solid summer hit for the Palladium. It will entertain thousands of people who are out for a simple night's fun and don't get their cassocks in a tangle, like I do, about church liturgy. Much of it is well performed. Just count me out. From the start there is basically one joke: namely, the spectacle of nuns grooving around on the dance floor. I know I may be taking it too seriously but I found myself recoiling sharply from this story's saccharine values and its bullying gaiety. The thing is as shallow as the Aral Sea. Hideously formulaic. Musical by numbers. Yuck, yuck, yuck … The evening's chief on-stage talents are Sheila Hancock, who plays the stern Mother Superior, and Patina Miller as Deloris … Miss Hancock is on fine form and Miss Miller, after an off-key start, shows herself to have a cheesy presence and a Merlin engine of a voice.”
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph (four stars) – “What is it about Andrew Lloyd Webber and nuns? No sooner has The Sound of Music closed at the Palladium, than he books in this new musical about another closed order of holy sisters ... Whatever his murky subconscious motivation, he deserves our thanks. Based like most new musicals these days on an old movie, Sister Act proves more enjoyable on stage than it did on film. I caught the show at the final preview with an audience of regular punters rather than the usual first-night rent-a-mob, and the cheers and standing ovation at the end were both genuine and deserved. The book, by Cheers writers Cheri and Bill Steinkellner, is strong, funny and touching. And the disco-inspired score by Disney favourite Alan Menken, with neat lyrics by Glenn Slater, is a cracker. Frankly, what’s not to like, especially when you’ve got a chorus line of jiving nuns singing their hearts out ecstatically? ... The show’s real find is the American Patina Miller as Deloris. She has all the comic vitality of Whoopi Goldberg in the film, but she’s sexier and sings up a storm. When she’s belting out the disco-diva anthems you might be listening to Gloria Gaynor or Chaka Khan. She also has a funky, spunky stage presence and great comic timing ... I suspect this musical comedy about a nun on the run could prove habit-forming.”
Paul Callan in the Daily Express (five stars) - "Patina Miller belts it out with enough energy to fire a canon as Deloris … This American singer with the soul of gospel in her voice shines in the role and has every foot in the theatre tapping along to her infectious energy … There is no doubt that this girl, who has a fantastically expressive face, can part the clouds with the sheer volume of her voice … Sheila Hancock brings a splendidly icy disapproval to the part of the Mother Superior. And she handles the gradual thawing-out of the old nun with a sprightly verve … There is also a touching and noteworthy performance by Katie Rowley Jones as the noviciate Sister Mary Robert ... Everything buzzes along to Alan Menken's music and there are slick lyrics from Glenn Slater. All in all, as the subtitle says, it is a 'divine musical comedy'. Bless."
Tom Chivers in the London Paper (four stars) - “It's not an immediate success. For a while it meanders through sub-Lloyd Webber saccharine, only picking up late in the first act. But once Patina Miller's Deloris starts teaching the nuns about music and the world it bursts into vibrant life … Aside from the big chorus numbers, a hilarious Barry White parody is the pick of the songs. The whirling sets are spectacular. By the time Goldberg herself ambles on for the curtain call, the crowd is roaring. It's the feel-good show of the summer.”
To see what our Whatsonstage.com theatregoers thought of the show at our exclusive Outing last week - click here
Whoopi Goldberg does exactly what she’s intended to do in Sister Act - she pulls in the punters. Goldberg fans have snapped up tickets for her three-week, West End debut stint and, on press night, they took every opportunity to whoop it up (loudly) for Whoopi; even her pre-recorded, pre-show announcement warning the audience to switch off their mobiles garnered applause. So you can just imagine the excitement generated by every onstage utterance, lyric, raised eyebrow or hip swivel.
None of which disguises the fact that, in the role of the Mother Superior, Goldberg is miscast – she’s simply not believable as a rigid rule-mistress who has devoted her life to god, humble sacrifice and missionary work, either in Philadelphia or Papua New Guinea. She also feels uneasy musically and slightly under-rehearsed on the acting front (pietousness wasn’t a word, last I checked).
But it doesn’t matter much. Whoopi seems to be having fun, as do the crowds. And whatever draws people in to see Sister Act in its final stretch at the Palladium, they won’t be the least bit disappointed with the real star of the show: Patina Miller, who is disco diva Deloris Van Cartier, played by Goldberg in the two Sister Act films. Miller justly won this year’s Whatsonstage.com Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance, which seems to have only improved as she’s settled in to the role.
And the two African-American leading ladies do team up well together, even if it is for the wrong reasons. “I feel like I’m looking at a mirror image of myself,” Goldberg’s Mother Superior tells Deloris at one point. Though the irony of the line is lost in this casting configuration, it raises an even bigger laugh – all the way to the box office.
NOTE: The following THREE-STAR review dates from June 2009 and this production’s original opening at the London Palladium. Other principal cast changes since its writing include Simon Webbe as Shank and Jacqueline Clarke as Sister Mary Lazarus.
It’s good but not great, diverting not divine. The best thing about Sister Act is the leading lady, the number one nun Deloris van Cartier, played by Patina Miller with personality to burn and a smile as wide as Wembley Stadium.
The story of the 1992 movie has been flattened out to provide minimal conflict between Deloris, the nun on the run from her career as a lounge singer after witnessing a murder, and the starchy mother superior of Shelia Hancock, who is raring to reggae and wobble her wimple.
The joyous surprise of the Motown movie score is replaced by a jobbing funk and disco playlist by Disney and Little Shop composer Alan Menken with so-so lyrics by Glenn Slater (working with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the new Phantom) and a book by Cheri and Bill Steinkellner (they produced and wrote some of Cheers) that makes The Sound of Music look like Noel Coward.
It’s a one-trick pony, this show, with nowhere special to go once the nuns have shown they can get down on the dance floor as soon as get down on their knees, and Anthony van Laast’s choreography has them leaping about like electrified penguins almost from the curtain-up.
The setting has been moved from the 1990s back to 1978, and from San Francisco and Reno to Philadelphia, so that Deloris’ killer boyfriend is no longer a Mafioso but Curtis Shank (all big wigs, bling and bad attitude in Chris Jarman’s performance), a drug-dealing Afro-American hood straight out of Shaft, with one of his stooges cleverly done by Nicolas Colicos as an equal mixture of niftiness and gormlessness.
There’s little sense of the show regenerating the parish life of the community, and Ian Lavender’s vague and silly monsignor isn’t a patch on Joseph Maher in the movie, though there’s a fairly funny pay-off when the white-robed pontiff rises from the orchestra pit and Julia Sutton’s Sister Mary Lazarus comes bopping back from the dead.
Peter Schneider’s production maintains a fizzing energy that is slightly too exhausting for comfort, and the sound system is wonky. But songs like “Take Me to Heaven,” “Bless Our Show” and “Spread the Love Around” will send audiences home happy enough, if not rushing back to buy the album; there’s little that’s truly memorable beyond Miller’s magnificence.
1st night in Sunderland yesterday.From start to finish excellent.The reaction of the audience says it all-everyone thoroughly enjoyed the show.Great. Go and see it if you can find a ticket. - Jimmy
17 Nov 11
Well I had to go once again to see this show and this is my 3rd time and of course had to see it with Whoopi who made the role her own though I also loved Sheila Hancock when she did it. It is a fun show and the songs are great and all the cast give it 120% and having Whoopi in it--well the audience were almost in ecstasy seeing her on stage. Can I also say what a gracious lady that after the show she signed autographs for all that were waiting at the stage door and I lost count at about 150 heads I could see. Well done Whoopi you are a great star but still down to earth. - Joe Spiteri
25 Aug 10
I had to see this once again before it closes and I do recommend anyone who has not seen Sister Act to go and see this fabulous production. - Ils
22 May 10
My sister and I took mum as a surprise as she is a huge fan of the film. Absolutely wonderful! Although the songs are different from the film this didn't matter at all (although nice to know in advance), as essentially the plot was the same. We were a little disappointed initially not to have Patina Miller, however her understudy Debbie Kurup was fantastic. In fact all of the cast were brilliant as the standing ovation proved. A wonderful uplifting must-see musical. - Emma
29 Mar 10
went to see this last night with a friend..we sat in row v in the stalls...overall a good show..super sets and costumes..patina miller is a real ster what a fab voice!! was a little dissappointed that there were NO songs from the film but i guess u should go with a open mind. julia sutton is so funny and steals the show whenever she is on stage. not sure what the point of ian lavender was to be honest?? generally a good musical..well we had a good evening anyway-would def recommend.. - marie
13 Mar 10
I was very disappointed. They do not sing the Sister act Songs, why? I found it quite boring and the seats were so tight I had to move. - Ross Toal
01 Mar 10
Got some freebees to see this, so having seen it before, decided to go again to see if i was wrong. I wasn't. the show isn't very good. It's better than 'Legally Blond' however. Still dont get the fuss over Patina Miller. She's still cold and phoning in her performance. She doesn't even try to connect with any of the cast. A very selfish performance. We got understudy 'Verity Quade' for Sheila Hancock who was very good indeed in carrying that batton. - Cassox
07 Feb 10
We delayed going to see Sister Act after reading some of the reviews on this site and in some newspapers too. So last night we entered the London Palladium with some trepidation not knowing what we had let ourselves in for. Well I have to report all our doubts were cast aside right from the start. Patina Miller really is a star in the making with a powerhouse of a voice. Both her and Shelia Hancock well deserve to be voted Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress in a musical at all the award ceremonies this year. The rest of the cast are fabulous too. The stage design and lighting are a wonder to behold and knock anything Priscilla and Hairspray put on stage for six. Go and see Sister Act you wil not be dissapointed it is a great night out. We loved it. - Ils
20 Jan 10
It's taken me a while to catch up with this show. I haven't seen the film, so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. It takes a while to take off and the music is a blandly formulaic disco, but it's funny, has a lot of energy, delightfully gaudy sets and costumes and it won me over. Sheila Hancock is wasted in a rather under-written role and Ian Lavender's part is very small for an over-the-title billing, but Patina Miller is terrific and the chorus of nuns are great (what is it about the Palladium and nuns?!). Another feelgood show as an antidote to economic misery and freezing weather. - Gareth James
08 Jan 10
Sat in row T 35 of stalls. Eve of 12th Nov' 2009. I, as always had bought the Cast recording, otherwise a musical is a vague mish mash of unfamiliar songs. I thought this was utterly brilliant, particularly the orchestra and the very enthusiastic conductor! The lead, Patina deserves a Tony for this when it hits Broadway. The songs are catchy and well written. Superb singing throughout and actin to match. These guys are graduates from Performing Arts and immensely talented, not some X Factor reject trying to act. I would HIGHLY recommend this show. I am a regular West End attender and this is one of the best I've seen. If any of the production team or cast read this. Thanks for a fabulous night. - Dave from Stafford
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