Peter Schneider to Direct Musical Version of "Sister Act"

By Robert Simonson
23 Jun 2005

Peter Schneider, the former Disney executive, will direct and co-produce a new stage musical version of the hit Whoopi Goldberg film comedy "Sister Act," Variety reported.
Alan Menken (Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast) is writing the music, Glenn Slater is lyricist and Cheri and Vill Steinkellner are in charge of the book. The show is being considered for a fall 2006 staging at the Pasadena Playhouse. Broadway is the expected next step.

The 1992 movie is about Deloris Van Carter, a Reno lounge singer who, after witnessing a mob killing, is hidden in a convent by the witness protection program. When the Mother Superior catches her leading some of the nuns astray, she orders Van Carter to join the church choir. Unsurprisingly, she leads the singing nuns down some new musical paths.

Schneider co-producers are Michael Reno and Albert Poland. Schneider has previously directed Grand Hotel at L.A. Colony Theatre, and he will stage Marc Blitzstein's opera Regina at Bard College this summer.