Forget bad habits, Steve Pratt becomes Sister Stevie as he goes behind the scenes of Whoopi Goldberg’s touring musical and turns a Monday into Nunday

IF it’s good enough for Robbie Coltrane in film comedy Nuns On The Run, it’s good enough for me. That’s my excuse for dressing up as a nun.

My motivation, to drop into luvviespeak, was clear. Getting in on the act – the hit musical Sister Act – and investigating backstage at Newcastle Theatre Royal meant dressing the part.

Just a bit of nunsense and if the editor sacked me for wasting office time a colleague had the headline ready: He went out with a wimple, not a bang.

Monday became Nunday, the start of the second week of the show inspired by the movie starring Whoopi Goldberg, in the North-East. The story has disco diva Delores hiding out as a nun in a convent after witnessing a gangland murder.

There she brings music into the lives of the nuns, culminating in a glitzy Las Vegas-style gospel choir finale.

Nuns On The Run used much the same plot, but without the songs. We’ve had flying nuns, singing nuns, running nuns, occasionally even praying nuns.

Backstage, deputy wardrobe mistress Alison Breakwell dresses me in the familiar black nun’s habit, topped with a wimple and a wooden cross and beads swinging from the waist belt.

The UK touring production of Sister Act will have been on the road for a year when the curtain comes down in Birmingham on October 25. The travelling company numbers 70 – 30 cast, 15 in the band, three sound, three lighting, three wigs, three wardrobe, “a whole load of stage management”, plus a resident director and dance captain who tour with the show “to keep it tight”, as company manager Eamonn Byrne puts it.

He’s giving me the backstage tour, indicating the scenery on stage, in the wings and hanging, waiting to be flown in during the show. “This is the set,” he announces. “Everything you see we tour with us, including the floor you’re standing on.”

The production is transported around the country in seven 45ft trucks. At the end of each run, everything is dismantled, packed up and transported to the next venue in a massive military-style operation.

“As soon as the curtain hits the floor, 60 or 70 people will come in, break it all down, and load it on the seven trucks. We’ll probably finish dawn Sunday morning, then drive it down to the next venue in Surrey. For four hours on Sunday afternoon we’ll starting putting it up, then all day Monday, all day Tuesday and open 7.30pm in Woking.”

The smallest venue the production plays is Wolverhampton Grand with around 1,200 seats and the biggest the 3,500-seat Edinburgh Playhouse. Sunderland Empire, where the show has already played, is somewhere in the middle with around 2,500 seats.

“It’s an expensive show to run and obviously the only way you can make it work is if you sell enough tickets. It sounds really obvious so we probably need venues with no less than 12,000 to 13,000 seats,” he explains.

“I toured with Hairspray before this, but we stayed for three or four weeks in a venue and that’s the other option – longer runs because one of the biggest expenses of any show is moving it from one venue to another.”

BYRNE views his role as company manager as the liaison between the producers in London and the local venue. “I see myself as the biggest babysitter in the world. A lot is about looking after people and making sure everything runs smoothly while you’re on tour,” he says.

Five performers in the cast known as “swings” are ready to step in when any of the ensemble is off or understudying for an absent leading performer. As a result, swings have to know every part in the show. One cast member has been replaced after a back injury made her unable to carry on. The dancing, the heavy costumes and the heat have caused a few faintings, which have led to a swing taking over halfway through a performance.

The size of the Newcastle stage makes it “a bit of a squeeze” to get the entire set on stage. Fortunately, the set can be narrowed down to fit all sizes. “When you’re planning a tour like this, you have to plan around two venues – the largest and the smallest. As long as it fits in both of those anything else is do-able,” he says.

The production tours with its own wig and wardrobe staff. The show is “quite light” on wigs, just 40 or 50, which is twice as many as needed, but takes into account wigs for understudies. There are three sets of costume – for the actor and two understudies.

“Some of the second covers will never get on so those costumes will never be used, they’ll just be put in storage,” he says. The speed of the costume changes means a wigs-and-wardrobe quick change area is set up in the wings at every venue. “We employ eight local dressers as well as our wardrobe staff. On the floor we have the names of the cast and the dressers lay out all the costumes on chairs in the reverse order that they’ll be used. The cast will come in, do their quick change and leave their stuff on the floor. “The quickest total wig and costume change is 28 seconds. That’s Delores.

It’s a bit like watching a Formula One pit stop. She’ll walk off stage, stop at the quick change area, two dressers will take her clothes off, others will lift her wig off. The other costume will be in front of her and when she’s given a tap she’ll step forward into it, someone else will pull it up, the wig will be put on and she’ll go back out.”

Costumes are hand-made with one wardrobe staff member having a fulltime job sewing sequins on the glitzy habits worn in the finale. “Feel the weight,” says Byrne offering one of the costumes. It’s heavy.

The sequin-encrusted wimple caused problems for performers in the London production. “Our physiotherapist came up with a phrase because we had so many neck strains when trying to dance. They call the condition ‘wimple neck’.”

STANDING centre stage is a giant Mary statue. One side portrays the glittery finale Mary, the other is “the everybody else” Mary. The fibreglass statue takes up half a truck all to herself.

“For two week touring, it’s quite a big show. You have things like Phantom Of The Opera and Oliver! which are touring with 12, 14, 18 trucks, but they stay at venues for six weeks,” says Byrne.

“Size and scale-wise Sister Act is up there with the biggest touring shows in the country. But it’s very cleverly done, a lot of thought and effort was put into the planning of it. And it’s very true to the London production.”

By now I’m getting very hot under the wimple. No one takes much notice when I go outside for a photo shoot. The nun’s garb is surprisingly comfortable. It could, if you’ll pardon a final obvious pun, become habit-forming.

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