Utter Nunsense!

I couldn't believe my eyes -- downtown Hunter covered in cars, all the usual parking spots filled, cars even using the volunteer fire department's private back yard.  The Doctorow Center on Main Street was buzzing - people chatting in the lobby, a line for tickets (the first time in my time in the GNC that I've seen a line for tickets for anything except lift tickets at Hunter), very few seats available in the theater.  No, not for Harry Potter; I saw that last week here and I was one of five in the theater.  The commotion was for the Saturday night performance of the Greene Room Players' production of Nunsense.  


It was a laugh-a-minute night of musical comedy.  The book, music and lyrics about the "Little Hobos" of Hoboken, NJ by Dan Goggin (who must have been a Catholic school drop-out) was putty in the hands of Linda Nichols, the director, musical director and choreographer.  The Sisters could not have been more natural combinations of "gentle but firm", which, come to think of it, describes every Nun I have ever met.   Every member of the production was Talented and Perfectly cast.  The mother superior ("Lake Superior") and her side-kick Sister Mary Hubert ("The Black Sea") played off each other with marvelous timing and rapport.

Sure, there were predictable Nun jokes ("Attila the Nun", The Flying Nun and the necessary penguin march) but they were delivered in such an off-hand way that they managed to avoid being trite and instead became charming.

Every member of the all-female cast was up to the tasks of her  role, but two numbers were show stoppers. Sister Mary Amnesia, played by Kelly Transue, belted out a touching "I Could've Gone To Nashville" so well that the crowd was ready to line dance in the aisles.  Two numbers later, Sister Mary Hubert, played by Myra Garcia, doing her best Whoopi from Sister Act, delivered "Holier Than Thou" as if we were at a gospel revival in the Bible Belt.

Congratulations to the GRP, who proved that  Hey -- there's talent in them thar hills!