When “Nunsense II, the Second Coming. . . .” opens Wednesday night at Candlelight Dinner Playhouse, it will utilize the same format as the original (1985) smash hit musical.
“It’s all new material, but basically a variety show again,” writer/composer Dan Goggin, creator of “Nunsense” and its sequel, said in a recent interview. “We decided that the same five nuns (the Little Sisters of Hoboken) have become so caught up with being in show business, that they’re going to do it one more time.”
The 50-year-old Goggin, who was taught by the Dominican sisters in Alma, Mich., said his experiences weren’t of the ruler-rapping variety. “The thing is, it was a small town and we probably weren’t that bad, so we never got their ire up that high. We were also lucky in that the nuns we had were just funny people. “There was only one who even potentially could have been a killer. She replaced a third grade teacher who had had a nervous breakdown and had to be sent away.”
Goggin disagrees with one critic who said you have to have had a Roman Catholic education to truly appreciate his shows. “I don’t think that’s true at all. `Nunsense’ has played all over the world, including twice in Japan. I think the biggest test was when we opened a big company of `Nunsense’ at the Coconut Grove in Florida, where it proved to be the biggest box office hit to date. At one performance they took a survey, and in the audience of 1,100, there were only six Catholics. Everyone else was Jewish.”