……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…
BY BILLY SUTER
HARD to believe that Northcliff High School in Gauteng will be visiting Durban’s Playhouse for the 20th consecutive year when it presents its latest show, Sister Act The Musical, at the Playhouse Opera from Tuesday to Sunday, June 26 to July 1.
Longtime director of musicals for the school, Nick Jourdan, points out that it was in 1999 that Northcliff High ventured into unknown territory, transporting a whole company of performers, musicians, staff, sets and props to Durban.
“That was to present the musical Chicago to a then-pretty unresponsive and very small number of audience members at The Natal Playhouse, as it was then known,” says Jourdan. “Since then, over the past 20 years, star performers have come and gone; there have been highs and lows; and many young people have grown and benefitted from this unique and highly enriching experience.”
In this 20th year, Northcliff raises the bar with the charming, funny and heart-warming musical comedy, and Jourdan maintains that “the standard is higher, the singing is uplifting, and the comedy is fresh and delightfully entertaining”.
In the lead role is Grade 9 pupil Pride Mncube, who plays Deloris van Cartier.
Sister Act The Musical is based on the movie starring Whoopi Goldberg and Maggie Smith. It has lead character Deloris witnessing her gangster boyfriend, Curtis, bumping off one of his thugs, after which she is on the run to escape Curtis’s clutches… and she turns to the Philadelphia Police Department for help.
Their solution is to hide Deloris in the last place he would think to look, a convent, until she can be a witness in Curtiss’ trial.
At Queen of Angels, Deloris encounters her nemesis, the mother superior, who, to keep her out of mischief, places her in charge of the nuns’ choir with astounding results.
Deloris transforms this hapless, tuneless group into a singing sensation that gets invited to sing before the Pope. And this tale is not without a romantic twist…
Tickets for the opening performance, at 7.30pm on Tuesday, June 26, cost only R50 each, while tickets for the 6.30pm performance on Wednesday, June 27, cost R70.
Thereafter tickets cost R110 each for 7.30pm performances from June 28 to 30, as well as for the 2pm matinee on Saturday, June 30. The final performance is at 2pm on Sunday, July 1, for which tickets also cost R110.
Note that pensioners pay R90 for all performances from June 28 to July 1.
Booking is at Computicket outlets.
.....SoSuterBill..... 