The Sisters of Hoboken have already taken one northeast Wisconsin community by storm, and now they are descending on Clintonville for one performance only.
Abrams Spotlight Productions is bringing the musical “Nunsense” to Clintonville High School on May 31 through an arrangement with the Clintonville Lions Club. The show was the group’s spring performance at the Byng Community Theater in Abrams, where eight different audiences laughed at things that nuns normally would not be doing.
This will be the first time that the Oconto County theater group will be taking a full production on the road, according to “Nunsense” director Brandon Byng. He said Abrams Spotlight Productions has previously done murder mystery nights at other locations, but never a full show.
“We’ve always had the idea of doing a show and taking it someplace else. With this one, it was an idea between me and (Clintonville resident and alderwoman) Mary-Beth Kuester, and then she got the Lions Club involved because they were looking for a fundraiser, and it just kind of went from there,” Byng said.
If the Clintonville show is a success, there is a possibility that Abrams Spotlight Productions could take other shows on the road, Byng said.
The premise of the show is that the sisters have been subjected to tragedy when 52 nuns were accidentally poisoned by the cook. With insufficient money to bury that many people, the surviving nuns flock to the local high school, where “Grease” is being performed, and plan to put on a talent show in order to raise the money.
The nuns are not the typical saintly ladies that folks are used to, according to Byng. There’s a streetwise nun, a nun with no memory of her life before joining the order, a novice nun who yearns to be a ballerina and more.
“Everyone has an idea of what nuns are supposed to be like, but this show pretty much breaks them down and humanizes them more, putting them into some crazy situations that people can have fun with,” Byng said. “It’s not a religious show. Anyone who comes to the show can relate to the humor and the funny little things they say about being Catholic or whatever.”
Byng noted that patrons of the shows in Abrams mentioned they felt like they had been taken back to Catholic school, while watching the show.
Byng, who also dons a habit and plays Sister Mary Regina in the show, noted that being Mother Superior wasn’t much different than running his theater.
“She’s a leader, and she wants everything to go perfectly,” Byng said about his character. “In some aspects, that’s what I’m trying to do, but we always know nothing goes quite how you planned it. She just kind of adapts and keeps going — and maybe pulls her hair out a little bit along the way. We’re kind of the same.”
