Two local artists join in a lot of 'Nunsense' live at Mountain Playhouse
A lot of nunsense is here.
Two local actors took a short break during rehearsal of the "Nunsense" play at the Mountain Playhouse and sat down with the Daily American to discuss just that.
The musical comedy is a theatergoing favorite at the Mountain Playhouse, which has produced all three of the "Nunsense" productions at some time in one of its seasons.
"Live theater is important to this area and we want to continue our 80-plus years as the Mountain Playhouse," said Joseph Beer, chairman of the nonprofit's board.
The long-running summer stock theater began in an old gristmill in Jennerstown that became a haven for professional theater in Somerset County. The pandemic changed many things and the Mountain Playhouse was not an exception. The theater closed for two seasons.
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Last year, the nonprofit theater was ready to provide productions for its audience and the board wanted to make upgrades to the building. The group attempted to purchase the playhouse property and gristmill theater from Oak Leaf Lane LLC, but an agreement could not be reached.
The Mountain Playhouse season in 2022 then found a temporary home at the Pasquerilla Performing Arts Center at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. The theater's two 2023 productions will also be held there. The Mountain Playhouse's first 2023 production, "Nunsense," begins Wednesday and runs through June 4.
"In the last year, we have looked at several places. We are now trying to center on one location," Beer said.
The Mountain Playhouse is Pennsylvania’s oldest professional stock theater and one of only 12 professional summer stock theaters remaining in the United States.
What is 'Nunsense?'
"Nunsense" is a hilarious spoof about the misadventures of five nuns trying to manage a fundraiser. Sadly, the rest of the sisterhood died from botulism after eating vichyssoise prepared by Sister Julia Child of God. The remaining Little Sisters of Hoboken — ballet-loving Sister Leo, street-wise and tough Sister Robert Anne, befuddled and sweet Sister Mary Amnesia, the Mother Superior Sister Regina and mistress of the novices and second in command Sister Mary Hubert — stage a talent show to raise the money for the burials. To do so, the nuns take over a school auditorium, which is currently set up for the eighth-grade production of "Grease."
Of course, that is where the fun starts.
The author of "Nunsense" is Dan Goggin. Originating as a line of greeting cards featuring a nun offering tart quips with a clerical slant, the cards caught on so quickly that Goggin decided to expand the concept into a cabaret show and eventually a full-length musical that ran Off-Broadway for about 10 years.
"Nunsense" was even made into a TV movie in 1993 and has been performed globally.
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Who are the two local cast members?
Tamera Gindlesperger Fisher, who portrays second-in-command Sister Mary Hubert in "Nunsense," made her professional debut at the Mountain Playhouse in the 1985 production of "Annie." Some of her most memorable Mountain Playhouse roles include Amy in "Little Women," Josie Pye in "Anne of Green Gables," Chiffon in "Little Shop of Horrors," Judy in "There Goes the Bride," Poppy in "Noises Off," and Mrs. Edmonds in "5/31/1889 - The Flood."
After years of performing at the Mountain Playhouse, she continued acting in Pittsburgh before moving to New York City for seven years and graduating from The American Musical and Dramatic Academy. She has been seen in numerous film and television spots including "Strangers With Candy," "The Conan O’Brien Show," "Manna from Heaven," "All My Children," and her favorite and most local role — Missy Kreitzer, in the internet comedy series "Greg and Donny," which won the IFC Out of the Box award at the New York Television Festival. She is a member of The Stonebridge Players and was most recently seen as Bella in "Lost in Yonkers."
She is the director of the North Star High School musical and enjoys directing local youth theater. She graduated from North Star.
She moved back to the area from New York City in 2000, got married and had kids.
"I dabbled in it a little bit, the Mountain Playhouse, not often. Then my three kids (ranging from 19 to 10) got involved in all kinds of theater things." Back she came.
"I do enjoy straight acting the most. I'm an actor who can sing and a little bit of dance," she said. She enjoys being a director.
She felt she couldn't not audition for a role in "Nunsense," even though she knew it would work and she would have to change her mindset from telling others what to do as a director to follow what to do voiced by a director.
Kathryn Castner Davis said she was thoroughly obsessed with "The Sound of Music" when she was 6 years old. She told her mother she wanted to be a nun. Her mother broke the news as gently as possible. “You cannot be a nun. You're a Presbyterian.” It took 39 years and Castner Davis is now proving her mother wrong by joining the cast of "Nunsense" as Mother Superior Sister Regina in her inaugural performance at the Mountain Playhouse.
Castner Davis is an actor, director, writer and theatre educator who’s lived in the Johnstown area for the past 16 years. Her passion for creating immersive theatrical experiences has been enjoyed locally and abroad. She has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Orlando International Fringe Theater Festival. Favorite roles include Winnie in “Happy Days,” Beatrice in “Much Ado About Nothing,” and Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” She currently works at Girl Scouts Western Pennsylvania as the manager of volunteer support. She also works with the faculty and students at Richland High School.
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What role does the audience play?
In some plays the cast has to pretend there is no audience and try not to see them and erect what is called "a fourth wall," she said. With "Nunsense," that is not the case.
"In this show, there is no fourth wall," Gindlesperger Fisher said. "We are interacting with the audience the whole time. We will be looking directly at the audience."
The thing that separates theater from other art forms is that "you can't exist in a bubble," Castner Davis said. "If you don't have something you are playing to it is not really a show. The audience is the critical last piece of the puzzle when it comes to a theater experience.
Every audience is going to respond a little differently," she said.
There could be a laugh one night and not the next.
"We love to hear the audience," Castner Davis said.
The actors respond to that energy in the audience.
"There is room for that audience to have an impact on the show, but it is very important to stay professional and true to the story," Castner Davis said.
What does it take
There are six to eight hours daily of rehearsal time weeks before the play begins. There is the alone time when the actors are learning their lines.
They are trying to learn their choreography and their songs so when they go into rehearsal and work as a group everything will go smoother.
Then there is the "bookending" between 9-to-5 jobs and family and community obligations. It makes for little sleep and a "love" for acting.
Although directing and acting are a primary focus for Gindlesperger Fisher, there is still a house, husband, three kids, four cats and a rat.
There is still laundry and groceries and eating and sleeping sometimes, so while a play is in action so is "bookending," both actors agree.
What does being another person do?
Immersing oneself into being someone else affects who they are in real life.
"Actors are very unique in that their job is to understand and appreciate the characters they play and the worlds they create," Gindlesperger Fisher said.
"There is a heightened entity. It helps you keep your own bias in check," she said.
"I enjoy playing characters who are less like myself," Gindlesperger Fisher said. "You have to dig in to figure it out and it separates us more."
It does open a person up, Castner Davis said.
This article originally appeared on The Daily American: Two local artists join in a lot of 'Nunsense' live at Mountain Playhouse
