For the last three months the Park Players, including the group’s two founders, have spent a large portion of time impersonating nuns – and no, this is not their first time donning a habit.
This will be the sixth “Nunsense” performance by the Park Players, a non-profit Hudson-Bergen County theatre troupe. The series of plays created by Dan Goggin has been performed across the world.
According to Joseph D. Florenza Conklin, one of the group chairpersons, the nuns in “Nunsensations” travel to Las Vegas because they were offered $10,000 by a patron to do so.
“They’re helping out a friend, Angelo Contralto from Hoboken,” said Conklin, who was reading one of his lines as Sister Mary Regina, the mother superior of the convent. “I know what you’re trying to think, Contralto, Hoboken, the mob, well let me set this straight, the Contraltos are no Sopranos.”
Conklin explained that Goggin got the idea of producing nun-related theatre after taking a photo of a woman dressed as a nun. That photo became a greeting card, and that idea jump started the more than 25 years of the “Nunsense” series. After performing the series years ago, Conklin’s husband and the group’s co-chairperson John M. Fiorenza Conklin said that they were inundated by calls from the public asking for more of the sisters from Hoboken. John will be playing the role of Sister Robert Anne, the nun from Brooklyn who, after dropping out of cashier school, enrolls into the fictional Littler Sisters of Hoboken.
Both Conklin and John are well seasoned in their roles, having played the nuns before. Conklin said that he still is surprised at how people react to the roles.
“Even though you know some people in the audience, once you come out as a character they either become afraid of you because you are Mother Superior or they just get so happy they don’t know what to do,” said Conklin. “I could reprimand them for putting their legs up or having their arms on the table and they jump, it’s so funny.”
In a previous performance the actors did not have a dressing room and had to drive to the performance location in full nun garb.
“I said, ‘Lets drive like real nuns, lets drive really, really slow’ [and] we were going ‘O God bless you, God bless you’,” said Conklin.
He said that these productions, both on and off stage, are always full of hilarity.
“Nunsensations” will be performed as a dinner theatre show at Antonia’s, at 9011 Palisades Avenue, on March 12, 13, 14 and 15, with dinner being served at 6:30 p.m., except for Sunday, which will be at 1:30 p.m. Tickets are $45 for adults and $43 for students and seniors.
On March 26, 27, 28 and 29 the show will be performed at Waterford Tower’s black box theatre, at 190 River Road, and on April 4 at the Church of the Good Shepherd, at 1576 Palisades Avenue. Tickets will be $20 for adults and $18 for students and seniors.
To purchase tickets call (201) 941-6030.
Importance of the arts
“The arts are just so important,” said Judy Espaillat, who is playing the role of Sister Mary Hubert.
Espaillat, originally from North Bergen and now a Ridgefield Park resident, is in charge of the novice not-quite-yet-nuns.
“[Children need] Music theatre and the arts,” said Espaillat. “The community needs it. It brings people together [and] it’s just wonderful to bring joy and laughter to people.”
Espaillat was a Park Player for a number of years and is returning to the stage after a seven year hiatus. She was in their production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” and wound up playing a pregnant man. Unbeknownst to the audience, she was truly pregnant.
Sisters Mary Paul and Mary Leo – Janice and Brittaney Perez, respectively – were also involved with the Park Players when they were students in Union City, before moving to Ridgefield Park after eighth grade. Conklin, a former drama facilitator at Woodrow Wilson School in Union City, had Janice as a student, while Brittaney was a member of the stage crew in a prior production.
“The Park Players include younger people more than I’ve seen other community groups do, and for someone like me, whose been doing this since I was 14-years-old, I get to experience not only working with adults who have different jobs and come from different places, but it’s like a separate family and you get to grow up with them,” said Janice.
The full nun experience
Conklin said that for his role he was aided by memories of real nuns during his time at Holy Family in Union City. He said out of a class of 186, only about 92 students graduated because of how strict the school was.
He said that during the last week of high school, because he had begun to “feel his oats,” he sat in the office next to the mother superior after tormenting a French nun.
“It’s unbelievable some of the things we did in those days,” said Conklin. “Some of those ladies were just amazing. They were motherly, so I guess that’s what it grew from. Some of them were so funny [and] they didn’t know they were funny.”
Conklin, while on vacation recently with John, said they were having dinner before seeing a production of “Meshugga Nuns” in Connecticut when they realized Goggin and another cast member were eating nearby. He decided he wouldn’t disturb them outright, but ran to his room to get his “clicker” that nuns once used to get a student’s attention.
When Goggin had finished talking Conklin went “click,” immediately getting their attention. He then told Conklin that he must have been Mother Superior in the past and that John fit the role as Sister Anne.
Now the cast is so into their roles that there is constant laughter.
“We play bumper cars,” said John, who explained that the ensemble cast was great at improvising.
Sisters sing and dance
One of the cast members expected to bring on laughs is Janice, who will be playing Sister Mary Paul, now better known as Sister Amnesia due to a crucifix falling on her head. Her forgetful nature causes her to act out some of her bad behavior through a puppet named Sister Antoinette.
In a previous nun production Sister Amnesia becomes a country star with the hit “I Keep Forgetting I Forgot About You.”
Janice said that playing the role was a challenge, since she had to sing in two different voices and manage multiple personalities.
Her sister Brittaney’s character is more interested in dancing for Jesus.
“There is really nothing else that I enjoy more,” said Brittaney, of singing and dancing in her role. In the play, her nun will consider whether she should continue dancing for the Lord or return to the guy she left for the convent.
“It’s just a wealth of ideas, and we just like to add on too, because it’s the type of thing where the audience participation is constantly in this,” said Conklin.
Tricia Tirella may be reached at TriciaT@hudsonreporter.com