Ok, I'm going to go a little uncharicteristic here and single out one person right from the beginning. Ashley Moniz. Ashley played the role of Sister Mary Robert, the sweet, innocent little "goodie-two-shoes" nun. And she. Was. Awesome. I haven't heard a voice that good in a very very long time. And trust me, I've heard a lot of voices. Ashley had such a pleasantly crisp voice, and she hit every...single...note. Every one, right on. No sliding into a note. No using vibrato to cover up a missed note. No completely missing the note. Just pure, amazing pitch. And it wasn't just her pitch that was amazing. Everything about her voice was just spectacular. I'll say it again... She has the best voice I've heard in a long long time. This girl should never stop singing.
Normally I wouldn't open a review in this fashion, but I feel so strongly about Ashley's talent that I just had to put it first. I could go on and on (and on) about how great she was, but I think you get the idea. Plus, there's a whole lot more show to cover!
So the gist of the show is this: Diva sees boyfriend kill someone. Diva runs to police. Police officer is high school acquaintance who had crush on diva in high school. In order to keep diva safe, police officer decides to hide her where boyfriend would never think to look for her - in a convent. Diva is obviously is not used to convent life and causes some trouble. Diva ends up helping nun choir and turns them into a sensation, which brings in lots of money for the struggling church. Boyfriend finds out where diva is hiding and goes to find her. Police officer goes to try to save diva. If you haven't seen it yet, I'll let you guess which guy wins.
This was one of the better touring shows I've seen in a long time. Some of the tours I've seen in the past few years just seem to be lacking in overall quality and talent. But Sister Act had both.
What really impressed me was the talent of the entire cast, not just one or two leads. A lot of people needed to sing well in order for this show to work. And a lot of people did just that.
So here's something kind of amusing... At first, the nuns are supposed to be terrible singers. They're basically a bunch of nuns who couldn't carry a tune if their life depended on it. What I found amusing was this group of professional singers "trying" to sound bad. I'm guessing these "bad singing" scenes were some of the hardest scenes for them to perform. It goes against every grain in a performer's body to sing off key, and I could tell that these singers really had to work at this! But that just goes to show the quality of the vocals in this show.
Vocals aside, the acting was another strong point in the show. In many musicals I've seen recently, it seems like you either get good singing or good acting, but not both (and sometimes you don't even get one of them). Sister Act again had both. Each role was perfectly cast.
Ta'Rea Campbell, who played Deloris Van Cartier / Sister Mary Clarence, was another shining star in the show. (And she was literally shining in some of her outfits! I don't think I've ever seen a show with such a shiny and sparkly wardrobe. And I mean this in a good way... The costumes were simply dazzling.) I could tell right from the start that Ta'Rea was perfect for this role. Her acting was spot-on, as was her singing.
Chestor Gregory put on a great performance as (Sweaty) Eddie. When he started the song "I Could Be That Guy," I wasn't quite sure what to think. Was he being funny? Was he really not a good singer? To be honest, it was a little awkward. But as the song went on, I started to feel more comfortable with his performance. By the end of the song, when he was hitting those falsetto notes, I had completely forgotten about the awkwardness from the beginning of the song. The rest of his performance throughout the show proved to be more like the end of the song than the beginning.
Hollis Resnik, who played the role of Mother Superior, was a powerful actress and singer. She had a good voice, but her pitch was off more than once. Because her voice was so strong, and because she was on pitch most of the time, it was an unpleasant surprise when she slipped off pitch and was very noticeable. She also had a unique way of pronouncing some words, which was a bit distracting. Maybe she was just having an off night. I'm going to go with that because I think most people would describe her as extremely talented.
The rest of the cast, from Melvin Abston as Curtis (the boyfriend) to the rest of the nuns, and even TJ and Pablo (Curtis's comic sidekicks), did a great job pulling the show together for an amazing production.
Another aspect of the show that I enjoyed was the humor. While I expected the show to be amusing, I was pleasantly surprised with how often I found myself laughing. Hard. And out loud. And I'm not even Catholic. While the basic religion jokes were pretty funny, I could tell there were some Catholic jokes thrown in there that just went over my head. But judging by the laughter from the rest of the audience, those jokes were pretty funny as well.
Overall I give this show 9 out of 10 standing ovations!
(This review is based on the February 25, 2014 performance at Hershey Theatre.)
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