If you only saw one Roman Catholic show this weekend, Sister Act was the one to see!  NDP’s production of Sister Act this weekend had everyone singing and dancing, and Spreading the Love around!  Sister Act: A Divine Musical Comedy is a show loosely based off the Sister Act movie released in 1992.  Though the music and plot in the movie are a bit different from the musical, the stage production encompasses every bit of the hilarity and sisterhood found in the movie.

For those who did not see the show, Sister Act is about a “wayward woman” named Delores Van Cartier (as in Cartier’s Diamonds) who witnesses her boyfriend kill someone.  She is then rushed into the witness protection program, where she’s hidden at a convent called Queen of Angels.  Mother Superior, the head of the convent, is very suspicious of Delores and worries that her ways will infiltrate her convent and ruin the church.  Delores teaches the Queen of Angels choir to sing, but in her own jazzy style, not the reverent style Mother Superior wishes.  However, in the end both Delores and Mother Superior realize that their own ways are both right, and that the most important thing in life is love in friendship and sisterhood.

Mumbi Wainaina shined in her performance as Delores.  Her gorgeous vocals and dramatic attitude portrayed Delores with the perfect amount of sass and funkiness.  Delores’s crazy ways were perfectly contrasted with the strict Mother Superior, stunningly portrayed by Maddie Saldaña.  Mumbi and Maddie’s voices blended perfectly together during “Here Within These Walls,” and their performances rocked the house.

The ensemble of nuns completed the show, with every reaction to the happenings around them.  Noelani Won had the audience in tears with her witty one-liners and soulful rapping as Sister Mary Lazarus, and Haley Metzger’s positive and sugary sweet attitude showed through in her portrayal of Mary Patrick.  Olivia Aubele shined as bright as the sun in her first NDP show, playing the kind but shy nun Mary Roberts, and her character transition from letting her life happen to taking control of her own destiny was very well done.  The beautiful sets and lights, created and built by Katherine Battaglia, Rachel Wolniak, Tori Erisman, Clare Boland, and Kate Walsh really brought the show together.

Overall, NDP’s production of Sister Act is arguably one of the best we’ve done in a while, and speaking from the entire cast, we hope that you thoroughly enjoyed this show and now know just how good it is to be a nun!