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Otago Daily Times

It's all just a bunch of ‘Nunsense'

In the director's chair for West Otago Theatrical's upcoming production of "Nunsense" is Marné Hendricks. PHOTO: SUPPLIED A West Otago school teacher is taking her first shot at directing grown-ups in the upcoming production of black-comedy musical Nunsense. Blue Mountain College teacher Marné Hendricks said she chose the 1985 musical for her directorial debut with West Otago Theatrical for its relatively small cast and because she had seen it done before. She said she was musical director for a production of Nunsense previously, from behind the scenes she saw what she would have done differently were she sat in the chair. "That was were I got my vision," she said. The show opens June 21 at the MLT Community Theatre in Tapanui, with a cast of 12. There are five leads playing nuns and seven supporting, also mostly nuns, bar one father. The story begins when the lead nuns find out their chef has accidentally poisoned the other 52 residents of their convent with a tainted vichysoisse. The nuns then scramble to come up with the funds for the 52 burials and a musical fundraiser with hilarity ensues. "From the first line you're going to be laughing," Ms Hendricks said. Forty years on from, Dan Goggin's original run of the show, West Otago's will be the "mega-musical version", as published in 2011. This version was a remake of the original by the same author featuring additional songs, lines and characters. This is Ms Hendricks' first time directing a "main show", as she calls it, outside of school and she said she was finding directing adults very different than directing students. At school, she said she simply told the children what to do, but in this production she wanted the actors to develop their own character and have more freedom, while still maintaining her authority as the director. The show is being choreographed by last year's Mary Poppins, Kayla Wilcox, who is taking time out of her own performing schedule to teach the tap-dancing nuns. Ms Hendricks said the production had been lucky to rehearse in the theatre, and everything was on track for next month's opening. The sets were also being worked on, she said, but there would be "no spoilers" about what they looked like, as they contained a twist integral to her take on the show. Tickets for the show are available online at iTicket or at Ideal Print in Tapanui.