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ConorRu

Sister act The Musical (May 2009)

A bit about it:

Sister Act is a divine new musical comedy which will raise the roof at the London Palladium from June 2009.

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 breathes new life into the church and community, but in doing so blows her cover. Soon the gang are giving chase, only to find themselves up against Deloris and the power of her new found Sister Hood.

Based on the smash-hit movie, Sister Act features a brand new score by 8 time Oscar winner Alan Menken whose credits include Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and most recently the hit movie Enchanted.

its gunna open at the london palladium.
Rhumors say it will be a big hit.
Salome

good god why????
Monsieur D'Arque

I'm gonna say that this could be a good idea but it's been approached ALL WRONG.

First, why transfer the setting to the Seventies disco era? Doesn't add much, except a really random change of era.

Second, the whole point of Sister Act is the legendary Motown and gospel music. Writing a new score, especially a new DISCO score, completely alienates the thing that made the movie a classic.
kozafluitmusique

Looked interesting ... until I read the responses to this thread. But isn't there already a sister-act like musical series called "nunsense?"
Gwen

EH?!? Shocked
(Runs back to the movie.)
music is my life!!!

^ it'll NEVER be as good as the movies Sad
nickhutson

Whoppi Goldberg, who is producing the musical, says it's not trying to be the movie. Which is why they're re-telling the story, moving the era and all that. Alan says there's no point writing a score in today's era because the music in which they write in the style of has had no time to gel with audience members. Name a musical that's been a worldwide success that's set in the "modern day".

No one wants to go and see a movie re-done on stage; with the same songs, same story, sake jokes and same catharthis. Even shows like Spamalot and the Disney things veer away from the celluloid material for their stage adaptation.

Don't mock it until it's opened; it's a very snobbish and childish thing to do.
LadyOfTheLake

You know, my mom and I were just talking the other day about how Sister Act could make a pretty cool musical.

I'm excited to see what happens.
Robinflamingo

I'm actually excited about the idea! What a wealth of material to choose from - and changing popular songs to religious songs is always good for fun. There would be so many good roles for women of ANY age and shape, as well as men.

Koza, the Nunsense franchise is a bit different, because the premise is that it's an actual order of nuns putting on a show to raise money for various causes (burying the dead nuns in the freezer, for instance.)

Sister Act is about a VERY worldly lounge singer who poses as a nun and goes into hiding to save her own neck.

There's a lot of possibilities there!!
Monsieur D'Arque

I'm not mocking it. I'm just saying... the original WAS a musical. The idea of making a movie musical, famous for its songs, into a different musical with different songs seems somewhat odd.

That and, as someone who's heard the new songs, they're not that great.
RainbowJude

SISTER ACT movie is NOT a musical...

Monsieur D'Arque wrote:
The original WAS a musical. The idea of making a movie musical, famous for its songs, into a different musical with different songs seems somewhat odd.


The original film was not a musical. The mere fact that a movie features music isn't enough to qualify it a musical. Sister Act is a comedy that has songs from the Motown catalogue in it. Incidentally, this is one of the reasons that the show needed a new score; Goldberg said on The View that Motown has other plans for their song catalogue.

Later days
David
star2ballie

all i know is sister act 2 is the best because it has 'joyful joyful' in it. and they tear that shit UP!
kozafluitmusique

Robinflamingo wrote:
I'm actually excited about the idea! What a wealth of material to choose from - and changing popular songs to religious songs is always good for fun. There would be so many good roles for women of ANY age and shape, as well as men.

Koza, the Nunsense franchise is a bit different, because the premise is that it's an actual order of nuns putting on a show to raise money for various causes (burying the dead nuns in the freezer, for instance.)

Sister Act is about a VERY worldly lounge singer who poses as a nun and goes into hiding to save her own neck.

There's a lot of possibilities there!!


I stand corrected...still...I'm kinda ... annoyed by the idea of a Sister Act musical.
Robinflamingo

Monsieur D'Arque wrote:
I'm not mocking it. I'm just saying... the original WAS a musical. The idea of making a movie musical, famous for its songs, into a different musical with different songs seems somewhat odd.

That and, as someone who's heard the new songs, they're not that great.


Isn't that what they did to Fame, which I never understood either?
Mazz

Nope, Fame's an almost completely different animal. It's just a story set at the same school, a year or two later, with the famous title song shoehorned in so people don't feel short changed.
ConorRu

Ive actually got tickets to the opening night of it.

They where like £40/$80

haha maybe ill se whoopi..
im quite excited though.
x
Electricity24601

Any news on casting for this show?

I'd be interested to see who they'll pick...
lexell-cassini

Well, we already have a Sister Act theater adaptation here o.o

It's named "Las monjas cambian de hábitos" (Sisters change her habits or something like that) and yes, the Godspel music was the strong point.
Pounce

I saw Sister Act when it was being developed in Atlanta. It's been a while so I guess they went back to rewrite it. It wasn't a great show but compared to some of the movie turned into a musical dreck I've seen from Broadway, it was good. Like I said, it has been a while but I liked the story. I liked the song each of the nuns sing as to why they join the convent but I thought the lyrics needed to be funnier. As it was it had some good musical numbers but I wonder how much it has changed. It seemed a little less than polished but after seeing some awful touring shows, as far as I was concerned, it could have gone straight to Broadway. If the show is improved, it should be really good now.

Right now JCS Gospel is being produced in Atlanta. I have to check it out and report back to you all. I think it also is being developed for Broadway.
jackissensational

Did wedding singer teach us nothing? Bad movies don't make good musicals.
actor

Electricity24601 wrote:
Any news on casting for this show?

I'd be interested to see who they'll pick...


Katie Rowley Jones (Nessa in Wicked, Belle in Beauty and the Beast) is playing the shy nun who starts belting her ass off at the end (forget her name).
ilovebway

jackissensational wrote:
Did wedding singer teach us nothing? Bad movies don't make good musicals.

But...I love Wedding Singer. Sad


And actor, I believe that's Sister Mary Roberts. (By the way, I think Katie Rowley-Jones is an awesome choice for her.)
jackissensational

ilovebway wrote:
jackissensational wrote:
Did wedding singer teach us nothing? Bad movies don't make good musicals.

But...I love Wedding Singer. Sad

Me too; I was paraphrasing something someone here said about Wedding Singer a few weeks ago. Apparently they didn't notice. I love the movie and appreciate the adaption.
SomeoneLikeYou

Salome wrote:
good god why????


My sentiments exactly...
DanielWhit

Monsieur D'Arque wrote:
I'm not mocking it. I'm just saying... the original WAS a musical. The idea of making a movie musical, famous for its songs, into a different musical with different songs seems somewhat odd.


They sort of did the same with Flashdance, when that was made into a touring musical last year, that is selling well and is a good musical to see. We'll see in three months time what Sister Act is like.
wicked_boy

Don't judge it until it's opened...

At the rate you lot are going, you're going to be stuck listening to "Sondheim's Greatest Hits with a bit of R&H thrown in" for the rest of your lives... Open up, be free for new ideas. You lot slag off more of less everything that's opened on Broadway or in London over the past year and a half.
Gwen

I was just a bit shocked at the idea at first. I guess it might be interesting.
Brother Marvin Hinten, S.

wicked_boy wrote:
Don't judge it until it's opened...

At the rate you lot are going, you're going to be stuck listening to "Sondheim's Greatest Hits with a bit of R&H thrown in" for the rest of your lives... Open up, be free for new ideas. You lot slag off more of less everything that's opened on Broadway or in London over the past year and a half.


Our beef is not with the material the musical is based on. Our beef is that the film already had a score, and a great score at that, by some of the best musical acts of all time. To replace it with an entirely new score seems counterproductive. Other Disney movies (this one was Disney via Touchstone) have made the relatively seamless transition to the stage without much change, so why not this one?
wicked_boy

Brother Marvin Hinten, S. wrote:
wicked_boy wrote:
Don't judge it until it's opened...

At the rate you lot are going, you're going to be stuck listening to "Sondheim's Greatest Hits with a bit of R&H thrown in" for the rest of your lives... Open up, be free for new ideas. You lot slag off more of less everything that's opened on Broadway or in London over the past year and a half.


Our beef is not with the material the musical is based on. Our beef is that the film already had a score, and a great score at that, by some of the best musical acts of all time. To replace it with an entirely new score seems counterproductive. Other Disney movies (this one was Disney via Touchstone) have made the relatively seamless transition to the stage without much change, so why not this one?


You need to think of the film and the new stage show as two different things. They are two different things, just both have the same themes / plotline within them.
Brother Marvin Hinten, S.

When one of those things is relying on the other thing to sell tickets and garner some publicity, it's kind of hard to do that. Just, you know, something I thought of.
sephyr

star2ballie wrote:
all i know is sister act 2 is the best because it has 'joyful joyful' in it. and they tear that shit UP!


So true Laughing Now if they turned that into a musical, I would definitely be excited!
the.emcee

Sad I heard them [producers] talkin about it on the news.
They said it will be like, "A new and improved version, but different and funnier"

Have those dumbos ever heard of a little show called "NUNSENSE!"
TR_Wolf

I like the IDEA of it, but if they removed the gospel angle, that spoils it, as it's the whole point... it was a different ANGLE of religious musical worship than what the nuns were used to. There are no Disco churches. I hope.

I mean if they did it with gospel, and kept Hail Holy Queen and I Will Follow Him, it'd be great.
Elphie With A Ga

i think this would be pretty interesting to see
Pounce

Brother Marvin Hinten, S. wrote:
When one of those things is relying on the other thing to sell tickets and garner some publicity, it's kind of hard to do that. Just, you know, something I thought of.

Well, just think of the old movie as a "hook" for the new musical.

But as Nick Hutson said, if they used the old material, it would be more or less a "jukebox" musical...blah! I prefer the songs to be well integrated into the show. "Mamma Mia!" however did a pretty good job fitting the story to the songs.
RainbowJude

Reviews

My immediate reaction is: "Nuns in sequins? I'm there." Laughing That said, there are two songs available for download on the official site. I got them and thought they were loads of fun, without being completely out-and-out fantastic.

Anyway, the show's been open for a month now, with Patina Miller as Deloris and Sheila Hancock as the Mother Superior. The critical reception has been decidedly mixed, with almost unanimous praise for Menken. Some snippets:

Charles Spencer (The Telegraph) wrote:
(Sister Act) proves more enjoyable on stage than it did on film.... 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?

Ian Shuttleworth (Financial Times) wrote:
It’s not a brainless show; Glenn Slater’s lyrics are often enjoyably sharp. It’s just that whenever the choice arises between creative and commercial, commercial wins out every time.

Michael Billington (The Guardian) wrote:
What was originally a fairytale fantasy... makes little sense in its new, vulgarised incarnation. In the movie, the music arose naturally from the story: there was even a certain wit about seeing a group of wimpled warblers turned into a cohesive unit. But here, long before the heroine has got to work on their larynxes, they are leaping about the stage like showbiz pros telling us "How I Got the Calling". In order to pad out a slight story, every key member of the cast also has to be given a number. As a result, the plot grinds to a halt while we hear about the macho fantasies of a sweaty cop, or the hoodlums weary us with their own wet dreams. 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.

Fiona Mountford (Evening Standard) wrote:
Whether or not divine intervention is involved, it’s a wimple-wibbling, habit-forming triumph.... Alan Menken’s attractive, gospel-inflected score kicks in and those soon-to-be swinging sisters introduce themselves marvelously in "How I Got the Calling". Helped along by Anthony Van Laast’s energetic choreography, they supply a stream of cherishable images: a can-can line of nuns in gaudy surplices, and then an ad hoc convent pyjama party as they pray away late-night nerves before the climactic encounter with His Holiness.

Benedict Nightingale (The Times) wrote:
[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... 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.

Quentin Letts (Daily Mail) wrote:
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.... 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..... 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.

David Benedict (Variety) wrote:
A slow start, clunky storytelling and cumbersome sets mean there's a whole lot of transcending to do, but with its nuns 'n' disco heart on its long, black sleeve and nonstop dynamo discovery Patina Miller in the Whoopi Goldberg role, the cumulative effect is shamelessly and irresistibly entertaining.


So has anyone been to see the show in London since it opened? What's changed since previews? What do you think is likely to change before the Broadway transfer next year? Any thoughts?

Later days
David
rockthestage82

I'm so fed up with producers taking good ideas and being lazy and stupid with them.

I wouldn't have a problem with movie-musicals if the artistry of the piece weren't thrown out the window in exchange for $$$.
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