While Sister Mary Clarence gets off to a rocky start with Mother Superior ( Maggie Smith), the duo ultimately come together when the showgirl creates buzz around the church’s choir and sparks joy in the community. Whoopi Goldberg made nun life seem cool when she starred as Deloris Van Cartier, a lounge singer who joins a convent after being placed in witness protection in the 1992 film.Īfter taking on the persona of Sister Mary Clarence - in order to stay safe until she testifies against her ex-boyfriend Vince ( Harvey Keitel), who she saw kill someone in Reno, Nevada - she creates life-long friendships with Sister Mary Patrick ( Kathy Najimy), Sister Mary Lazarus (Mary Wickes) and Sister Mary Robert ( Wendy Makkena). You’re a gent.Take them to church! Sister Act pulled back the curtain on what it’s like to be a nun - and gave life to a musical film with impact that’s lasted nearly 30 years. The last one he sent to me ended: “So thank you Daniel, you are a prince. He had such a delight in language, even in a casual email. Teaching and encouragement were something he’d benefited deeply from and I think he wanted to repay that debt from Hammerstein. Watch the videos where Sondheim talks about teaching: he saw it as a sacred profession. He would always pay tribute to what Hammerstein did for him – how he mentored him. His immense generosity to others came, I think, from the way the baton was passed so generously to him from Oscar Hammerstein. He was a type of god for us, so we took him at his word.
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Merrily had a predominantly young cast and when he arrived, just before previews, he came in front of us and said: “It’s OK everyone, God has arrived!” He was being self-deprecating but we were so scared, we didn’t know if he was serious.
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When you understood his notes, and were able to do them, he was then so encouraging and that was the best feeling in the world. But his notes were so practical, insightful and implementable – he writes for actors, he puts himself in the place of an actor and asks how would this character express this particular sentiment? That’s why actors love his work. It was pretty intimidating and scary – he was really strict! If you replaced a syllable of a lyric with something that was inaccurate he would come down on you hard. When I did Merrily and Sunday in the Park With George, I had one-to-one tutorials with him at the piano, which was such a privilege. That line: “Charley, why can’t it be like it was?” And the whole lyric of Our Time. There is so much in Merrily about time, friendship and regret. Since the news of his death, I’ve been hearing the songs from Merrily We Roll Along, the first Sondheim-composed show that I acted in. Daniel Evans: ‘He was really strict!’ĭaniel Evans as Georges Seurat in Sunday in the Park With George. I’m so grateful to have met him and had the privilege of doing his work. But because of the work that he did, and writers who have come after him and been inspired by how brave he was, we have some really good musical theatre. A couple of times he said to me: “Oh, just pump up that internal rhyme.” And I didn’t even realise it was there! It’s so subtle.
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The brilliant thing about performing his works is that they are littered with rhymes that you don’t notice you’re doing, because the arc of the story is so character-based. Some people are very guarded about their work but he encouraged directors to be brave and was always excited about young directors and their imagination.
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When that reveals itself to you, it’s devastating. But the older you get, the more you realise that Act 2 is where the truth and the ache are. For me, with Sunday, I always thought Act 1 was perfect. His lyrics fall into place with you at certain points in your life. He remembered watching the tech rehearsal for it when Len Cariou did the big number Epiphany, thinking: “Oh my god what have I written? Where has this come from?” The realisation that he had unleashed this beast. We had some really interesting chats about Sweeney Todd. Meeting your hero is always a scary thing but he was wonderful. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/the GuardianĪ few of us at school would sing Sondheim stuff and then I first worked with Steve when I was 20 on Follies. Jenna Russell with Daniel Evans in Sunday in the Park With George, at Wyndham’s theatre in London, 2006.