VWCT doing 8th ‘Nunsense’ production

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Van Wert Civic Theatre has reached a milestone of sorts with its production of Nunsense: The Mega-Musical, according to Mary Ann Falk, who plays Reverend Mother Mary Regina in this eighth edition of the “Nunsense” series.

“For whatever reason, we are one of the first community theatres in Ohio, if not the first, to do the original and then we just kept doing the rest of them in order,” said Falk, who played Sister Mary Amnesia in the original production at VWCT back in 1990, but noted that Sister Robert Anne, the tomboy nun from Brooklyn, was her favorite “Nunsense” role.

“She was just a little off of what you would expect a nun to be like,” she said, adding that she also enjoyed the role, vocally, and liked doing the Brooklyn accent.

Falk said the reason only a handful of community theatre groups were able to do the original Nunsense when it became available was the house licensing the play, which changed after the original show, did not allow many groups to do it.

“Somehow we were able to get a license to do it right off,” she said, adding that many community theatre groups did the second show first, because the house licensing that one allowed many more groups to do it, and went back later when the original show was easier to license and did it then.

After the original show, VWCT then did the second show, Nunsense 2: The Second Coming, followed by Sister Amnesia’s Country Western Nunsense Jamboree, Nuncrackers: The Nunsense Christmas Show, Meshuggah-Nuns, Nunsensations: The Nunsense Vegas Revue, and Nunset Boulevard.

The new show, Nunsense: The Mega-Musical, is actually a rewrite of the original show, Falk said, with playwright Dan Goggin, who has written all of the “Nunsense” series, adding dialogue for characters only mentioned in the original play, as well as some new songs. That means a community theatre could have “mega” people on stage, if it wanted to, Falk added.

“You could literally have 20, or 30, or 40 people on stage, if you wanted to go crazy,” she said, noting that the current VWCT production has 11 characters, versus the five characters of the original. “We’re not on the large side of mega, but it is fun to do with more characters.”

In addition to the original characters, Reverend Mother Mary Regina (Falk), Sister Mary Hubert (Stacy Rife), Sister Robert Anne (Kristin Lee), Sister Mary Amnesia (Nancy Williams Shuffle), and Sister Mary Leo (Debbie Briggs), the VWCT production now adds Sister Julia, Child of God (the cook, naturally, played by Kelly Beise), Brother Timothy (Evan Joseph), Sister Mary Luke (Emily Gehle), Sister Mary Brendan (Hatti Bouillon), Sister Mary Wilhelm (Alyssa Taylor), and Sister Mary Patrick (Dee Fisher).

In addition to Falk, several others in this production have also done other “Nunsense” plays, either at VWCT or other community theatres. This is the second time Shuffle has played Mary Amnesia, who also did the role in Nunsense Jamboree, while Kristin Lee has also done several of the “Nunsense” series. The two people probably most involved in the series, though, are Jerry Zimmerman, who co-directs the current production, and has either directed or choreographed — or both — most of the others in the series, and Dee Fisher, who has been music director for nearly all of the series.

Fisher is doing extra duty in this production, though, playing Sister Mary Patrick, as well as being music director and conducting the Mt. St. Helen’s Band, which includes her playing keyboards, Elliott Mueller on percussion, Jeff Squire on reeds, Eli Knodell on the second keyboard instrument, and Victoria Recker on trumpet.

In fact, Zimmerman did his very first choreography work ever in community theatre on the VWCT production of the original Nunsense in 1990. That production was directed by VWCT veteran Jack Paullus.

Zimmerman, who said the “Nunsense” plays often have a cult following, also calls himself a “Nunsense freak,” noting that he saw the original at a small off-Broadway theatre not long after the show first came out in 1985, and has looked for opportunities to do them since then.

“It was a 75-seat house and I was rolling all over the floor the whole time,” he remembered.

Zimmerman was even in an all-male version of Nunsense in Vermont before Goggin produced his own all-male version, called Nunsense A-men. As a side note, Zimmerman noted that, because the Vermont male version was playing before Goggin’s own version came out, the playwright tried to shut the Vermont production down. Zimmerman said he later relented, though, when he discovered the production was for charity.

The “Nunsense” veterans also noted they were surprised that some of the younger members of the cast did not know any of the songs, although it wasn’t too surprising, since some of them hadn’t even been born when the original play was produced at VWCT.

The show, which opened Thursday night, runs this weekend, September 21-23, and the weekend of September 27-30. Shows begin at 8 p.m., except the Sunday matinees, which begin at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased by calling the VWCT Box Office at 419.238.9689 Monday through Saturday, 2-6 p.m.