Some community musicals rely on recorded backing tracks these days, but Gayle Beacock wouldn’t even think about that. The Beacock Music brand is all about education and live performance, she stressed, and this Beacock-backed production will benefit student musicians at Hough Elementary School. “You can’t not have musicians for this,” she said.
So, two busy pianists provide the cabaret-style accompaniment for Beacock’s revival of “Nunsense,” the joyfully sarcastic, gently profane sendup of Catholics in habits. “Nunsense” has been a crowd pleaser, and a prolific generator of sequels, spinoffs and screen treatments since it emerged Off-Broadway in the mid-1980s.
“It’s a dorky, silly show. You’ve never seen anything sillier,” Beacock said — and yet, she added, this production is special. For one thing, it’s a reunion of longtime thespian friends from an earlier production. “Nunsense” first elbowed local ribs in 1993 at the long-gone Columbia Arts Center in downtown Vancouver; now, three out of the five original actors who donned habits and high-kicked like chorus girls decades ago are back. So is director Tony Bump.
“It was the first show that completely sold out the Columbia Arts Center,” Bump said. “It always does very well.” Especially among Catholics, he added. “They’re always the ones who love it the most.”
If You Go
• What: “Nunsense,” a musical comedy by Dan Goggin, directed by Tony Bump.
• When: 7 p.m. March 9-10, 16-17; 2 p.m. March 11 and 18.
• Where: Beacock Music Recital Hall, 1420 S.E. 163rd Ave., Vancouver
• Cost: $20.
• Information: https://www.houghfoundation.org, http://www.beacockmusic.com
In addition to director Bump, there’s Carla Kendall-Bray as hapless Sister Mary Amnesia, Kim Dewey as showgirl-at-heart Sister Robert Ann, and Gayle Beacock as mischievous Sister Mary Leo. Laurie Campell-Leslie, choreographer of the 1993 production, has stepped into the role of ambitious Sister Mary Hubert, who wants to replace her superior, Sister Mary Regina, the disciplinarian with a wacky side, played by the only newcomer to the ensemble, Corrie Graham.
This time, the nuns go nuts in a novel location: the small performance stage at the Beacock Music store, usually the site of student recitals and master classes. Bump said this could be the beginning of musical-theater offerings at Beacock, in the entertainment desert of east county.
When the show ran in 1993, Gayle Beacock said, her brother Russ played in the orchestra and her father Dale, founder of the business, was the conductor. Dale died in 2011. “He would love this,” his daughter said.
Kids will blossom
All revenues from “Nunsense” will go to the Hough Foundation and its new after-school band program.
“We want to bring more music to kids at the elementary level. We are attempting to start an after-school band on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” said Jill Campbell, executive director of the Hough Foundation, which aims to help students and families at Hough Elementary School with basic needs as well as enrichment experiences.
Right now, Campbell said, kids at Hough get 45 minutes of music instruction per week. “It’s not nearly enough,” she said. A delegation from the Hough Foundation recently proved this to themselves, she said, by visiting the massive Chula Vista Elementary School District near San Diego, which rebuilt gutted music programs through strategic partnerships with groups including the San Diego Youth Symphony.
The result, Campbell said, is better test scores and “a better social-emotional situation” for Chula Vista students. “We toured their elementary schools for three days. We talked to principals at schools where kids have just blossomed” thanks to the return of music instruction, she said.
The Hough Foundation will provide all the musical instruments for the after-school band and is consulting the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra about hiring an instructor-bandleader, Campbell said. Great attendance at “Nunsense” would be the answer to their prayers.
