• Ako Mitchell
• AllRovi
• Anamorphic
• Atlanta, Georgia
• Bette Midler
• Bill Clinton
• Bill Nunn
• Box Office Mojo
• Broadway theatre
• C+C Music Factory
• Carrie Fisher
• Chances Are (film)
• Charlotte Crossley
• Chester Gregory
• Chris Jarman
• Comedy film
• Convent
• Dee Dee Sharp
• Dirty Dancing
• Disney
• Donna Douglas
• Douglas Carter Beane
• Emile Ardolino
• Etta James
• Fontella Bass
• Gene Greytak
• Ghetto
• Gospel music
• Gypsy (1993 film)
• Harvey Keitel
• I Will Follow Him
• Ian Lavender
• Isis Carmen Jones
• Jenifer Lewis
• Jerry Zaks
• Jim Beaver
• Joseph G. Medalis
• Joseph Maher
• Julia Sutton
• Kathy Najimy
• Katie Rowley Jones
• Lois de Banzie
• London Palladium
• Maggie Smith
• Marc Shaiman
• Marguerite Derricks
• Mary Wickes
• Max Grodénchik
• Michael Durrell
• My Guy
• Nancy Meyers
• Natasha Katz
• Nun
• Pasadena Playhouse
• Pasadena, California
• Patina Miller
• Paul Rudnick
• Peter Schneider
• Pope John Paul II
• Portal Film
• Protective custody
• Pseudonym
• Religious habit
• Reno, Nevada
• Richard Halsey
• Richard Portnow
• Robert Miranda
• Roman Catholic
• Rose Parenti
• Rotten Tomatoes
• Salve Regina
• San Francisco
• Scott Rudin
• Sheila Hancock
• Sister Act
• Sister Act (musical)
• Sony Pictures
• Stage Entertainment
• The Broadway Theatre
• The New Yorker
• Times Square
• Toni Kalem
• Tony Award
• Touchstone Pictures
• Victoria Clark
• Walt Disney Co.
• Wendy Makkena
• West End theatre
• Whoopi Goldberg
• Witness protection
• 
  

• 
  Broadway theatre
  Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City. Along with London's West End theatre, Broadway theatre is widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world.
  The Broadway theatre district is a popular tourist attraction in New York. According to The Broadway League, Broadway shows sold approximately $1.081 billion worth of tickets in calendar year 2011, compared with $1.037 billion for 2010. Attendance in 2011 was 12.13 million.
  New York did not have a significant theatre presence until about 1750, when actor-managers Walter Murray and Thomas Kean established a resident theatre company at the Theatre on Nassau Street, which held about 280 people. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggar's Opera. In 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice and The Anatomist. The company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the year the 2,000-seat Park Theatre was built on Chatham Street (now called Park Row). The Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, and especially so with the arrival of the Virginia Minstrels in the 1840s.
  
  wn.com/Broadway_theatre
• 
  London Palladium
  The London Palladium is a 2,286 seat West End theatre located off Oxford Street in the City of Westminster. From the roster of stars who have played there and many televised performances, it is arguably the most famous theatre in London and the United Kingdom, especially for musical variety shows.
  Walter Gibbons, an early moving pictures manager, built the Palladium in 1910 to compete with Edward Moss's London Hippodrome and Oswald Stoll's London Coliseum. The facade (originally that of Argyll House, which is why the pub opposite is called The Argyll Arms) dates back to the 19th century. Formerly it was a temporary wooden building called Corinthian Bazaar, which featured an aviary and aimed to attract customers from the recently closed Pantheon Bazaar (now Marks and Spencers) on Oxford Street. The theatre was rebuilt a year later by Fredrick Hengler, the son of a tightrope walker, as a circus venue that included an aquatic display in a flooded ring. Next it became the National Skating Palace - a skating rink with real ice. However the rink failed and the Palladium was redesigned by Frank Matcham, a famous theatrical architect who also designed the Coliseum, for a site that previously housed Hengler’s Circus. The building now carries Heritage Foundation commemorative plaques honouring Lew Grade and Frankie Vaughan.
  
  wn.com/London_Palladium
• 
  San Francisco
  San Francisco (/ˌsæn frənˈsɪskoʊ/), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.6 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles (121 km²) on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, giving it a density of about 17,179 people per square mile (6,632 people per km²). It is the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) in the state of California and the second-most densely populated large city in the United States after New York City. San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 13th most populous city in the United States, with a population of 805,235 as of the 2010 Census. The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metropolitan area has a population of 4,335,391.
  In 1776, colonists from Spain established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi a few miles away. The California Gold Rush of 1849 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
  
  wn.com/San_Francisco
• 
  The Broadway Theatre
  Coordinates: 40°45′49″N 73°59′01″W / 40.763481°N 73.983492°W / 40.763481; -73.983492
  The Broadway Theatre (formerly Universal's Colony Theatre, B.S. Moss' Broadway Theatre, Earl Carroll's Broadway Theatre, and Ciné Romais) is a Broadway theatre located in midtown-Manhattan. It has a large seating capacity of 1,761, and unlike most Broadway theaters, it is literally located on Broadway, at number 1681.
  Designed by architect Eugene De Rosa for Benjamin S. Moss, it opened as B.S. Moss's Colony Theatre on Christmas Day 1924 as a venue for vaudeville shows and motion pictures. The theater has operated in many capacities and under many names. It was renamed Universal's Colony Theatre, B.S. Moss' Broadway Theatre, and Earl Carroll's Broadway Theatre before becoming a legitimate theater house simply called Broadway Theatre on December 8, 1930. In 1937, known as Ciné Roma, it showed Italian films. For a short time during the 1950s it showed Cinerama films.
  On November 18, 1928 the first Mickey Mouse cartoon released to the public, Steamboat Willie, debuted at the Colony. Producer Walt Disney returned on November 13, 1940 to debut the feature film Fantasia in Fantasound, an early stereo system.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/The_Broadway_Theatre
• 
  Times Square
  Coordinates: 40°45′28″N 73°59′09″W / 40.75773°N 73.985708°W / 40.75773; -73.985708
  "The Crossroads of the World"
  Times Square is a major commercial intersection in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. Times Square, iconified as "The Crossroads of the World" and the "The Great White Way", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway theater district, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. According to Travel + Leisure magazine's October 2011 survey, Times Square is the world's most visited tourist attraction, bringing in over 39 million visitors annually.
  Formerly named Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in April 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the newly erected Times Building, which is now called One Times Square and is the site of the annual ball drop on New Year's Eve.
  The northern triangle of Times Square is technically Duffy Square, dedicated in 1937 to Chaplain Francis P. Duffy of New York City's "Fighting 69th" Infantry Regiment; a memorial to Duffy is located there, along with a statue of George M. Cohan, and the TKTS discount theatre tickets booth. The stepped red roof of the TKTS booth also provides seating for various events. The Duffy Statue and the square were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
  
  wn.com/Times_Square
• 
  West End theatre
  West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. Seeing a West End show is a common tourist activity in London.
  Total attendances first surpassed 12 million in 2002 and 13 million in 2007, setting a new record for the West End. Since the late 1990s there has been an increase in the number of famous screen actors on the London stage.
  The Theatre in London flourished after the English Reformation. The first permanent public playhouse, known simply as The Theatre, was constructed in 1576 in Shoreditch by James Burbage. It was soon joined by The Curtain. Both are known to have been used by William Shakespeare's company. In 1599, the timber from The Theatre was moved to Southwark, where it was used in building the Globe Theatre in a new theatre district formed, beyond the controls of the City corporation. These theatres were closed in 1642 during the interregnum.
  
  wn.com/West_End_theatre

• Ako Mitchell
  Ako Mitchell is an actor best known for his theatrical roles. He has played Mufasa in the West End cast of The Lion King, Straight Arrow in Doctor Dolittle (UK Tour) origininated the role of Eddie in the Original London cast of Sister Act and is currently playing the comfort counselor Mitchell M. Mahoney in the UK Premiere of 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee' at the Donmar Warehouse. He was also producer of the film 500 Years Later.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Ako_Mitchell
• 
  Bette Midler
  Bette Midler (born December 1, 1945) is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys. During her more than forty-year career, Midler has been nominated for two Academy Awards, and won three Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, and a special Tony Award. She has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. Her voice type is categorized as deep mezzo soprano.
  Midler was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her parents moved from Paterson, New Jersey to Honolulu before she was born, and hers was one of the few Jewish families in a mostly Asian neighborhood. Her mother, Ruth (née Schindel), was a seamstress and housewife, and her father, Fred Midler, worked at a Navy base in Hawaii as a painter. She was named after actress Bette Davis, though Davis pronounced her first name in two syllables, and Midler uses one, /ˈbɛt/. She was raised in Aiea and attended Radford High School, in Honolulu. She was voted "Most Talkative" in the 1961 school Hoss Election, and in her Senior Year (Class of 1963), "Most Dramatic". Midler majored in drama at the University of Hawaii, but left after three semesters. She earned money in the 1966 film Hawaii as an extra, playing an uncredited seasick passenger named Miss David Buff.
  
  wn.com/Bette_Midler
• 
  Bill Clinton
  William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation. Clinton has been described as a New Democrat. Many of his policies have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance.
  Born and raised in Arkansas, Clinton became both a student leader and a skilled musician. He is an alumnus of Georgetown University where he was Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. He is married to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has served as the United States Secretary of State since 2009 and was a Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009. Both Clintons received law degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the state's education system, and served as Chair of the National Governors Association.
  
  wn.com/Bill_Clinton
• Bill Nunn
  William G. "Bill" Nunn III (born October 20, 1953) is an American actor.
  Nunn was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of William G. Nunn, Jr., a well-known journalist and editor at the Pittsburgh Courier, as well as an NFL scout. Nunn's paternal grandfather was the first African American football player at George Westinghouse High School.
  Nunn was a 1970 graduate of Schenley High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Nunn graduated in 1976 from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.
  Nunn made his acting debut in the 1988 Spike Lee film School Daze, and is perhaps best known for his roles as Radio Raheem in Lee's Do the Right Thing and as Nino Brown's verbally challenged bodyguard Duh Duh Duh Man in New Jack City.
  Some of his other film credits include Lee's Mo' Better Blues and He Got Game, as well as Regarding Henry, Sister Act, Canadian Bacon, The Last Seduction, Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead, New Jack City, Runaway Jury, Spider-Man trilogy (as Joseph "Robbie" Robertson), Firehouse Dog, the television series The Job, Randy and The Mob, and A Raisin in the Sun, adapted for TV.
  
  wn.com/Bill_Nunn
• 
  Carrie Fisher
  Carrie Frances Fisher (born October 21, 1956) is an American actress, novelist, screenwriter, and performance artist. She is best known for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy, her bestselling novel Postcards from the Edge and screenplay for a film of the same name, and her autobiographical one-woman play, Wishful Drinking.
  Fisher was born in Beverly Hills, California, the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds. Her father was Jewish, the son of immigrants from Russia, and her mother was Protestant. Her younger brother is producer and actor Todd Fisher, and her half-sisters are actresses Joely Fisher and Tricia Leigh Fisher. Joely and Tricia's mother is the singer/actress Connie Stevens.
  When Carrie Fisher was two, her parents divorced after her father left Debbie for her best friend, actress Elizabeth Taylor, the widow of Eddie's best friend Mike Todd. The following year, her mother married shoe store chain owner Harry Karl, who secretly spent her life savings. It was assumed from an early age that Carrie would go into the family show business, and she began appearing with her mother in Las Vegas, Nevada at the age of 12. She attended Beverly Hills High School, but she left to join her mother on the road. She appeared as a debutante and singer in the hit Broadway revival Irene (1973), starring her mother.
  
  wn.com/Carrie_Fisher
• Chester Gregory
  Chester Gregory (aka Chess Gregory) is an award-winning Broadway actor and musician.
  
  wn.com/Chester_Gregory
• Chris Jarman
  Chris Jarman is a British stage and television actor.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Chris_Jarman
• Dee Dee Sharp
  Dee Dee Sharp (born Dione LaRue, September 9, 1945, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States) is an American R&B singer, who began her career recording as a backing vocalist in 1961.
  In 1962 she began a string of successful Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 hits: "Slow Twistin'" (with Chubby Checker) (#3), "Mashed Potato Time" (#2), "Gravy (For My Mashed Potatoes)" (#9), "Ride" (#5) and "Do the Bird" (#10). Both "Mashed Potato Time" and "Ride" each sold over one million copies, and were awarded gold discs. "Do the Bird" provided her only entry in the UK Singles Chart, where it peaked at #46 in April 1963. In 1967, she married record producer Kenny Gamble and has since recorded under the name Dee Dee Sharp-Gamble.
  She had a brief career resurgence during the disco era: as a member of the Philadelphia International All Stars (which also included Lou Rawls, Billy Paul, Teddy Pendergrass, The O'Jays and Archie Bell) she had a minor hit with "Let's Clean Up the Ghetto."
  In 1981 she spent four weeks at number one on the Hot Dance Club Play chart with "Breaking and Entering" / "Easy Money," from her album Dee Dee.
  
  wn.com/Dee_Dee_Sharp
• 
  Donna Douglas
  Donna Douglas (born September 26, 1933) is an American actress best known for her role as Elly May Clampett, in the long-running television series The Beverly Hillbillies.
  Donna Douglas was born Doris Smith on September 26, 1933 in Pride, East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, Louisana. She was the only daughter of Emmett Ratcliff Smith Sr. (1907–1988)] and his wife, the former Elma Robinson (1910–2003).
  Douglas attended St. Gerard High School where she played both softball and basketball. She was a member of the school's first graduating class. In 1949, she married Roland Bourgeois and together they had a son and then divorced. She was awarded the titles “Miss Baton Rouge” and, in 1957, was named “Miss New Orleans”.
  Douglas moved to New York to pursue a career in entertainment and started out as an illustration model for toothpaste ads. She was featured as the “Letters Girl” on The Perry Como Show in 1957, and as the “Billboard Girl” on The Steve Allen Show in 1959. These and other TV appearances led New York photographers and newspaper reporters to award her the “Miss By-line” crown, which she wore on The Ed Sullivan Show.
  
  wn.com/Donna_Douglas
• Douglas Carter Beane
  Douglas Carter Beane is an American playwright and screenwriter. Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, Beane now lives in New York.
  His works include the screenplay of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, and several plays including The Country Club and The Little Dog Laughed, which was nominated for the 2007 Tony Award for Best Play and As Bees in Honey Drown, which ran at New York's Lucille Lortel Theatre in 1997. Beane often writes works with sophisticated, "drawing room" humor.
  Beane wrote the book for Xanadu, a stage musical adaptation of the 1980 film of the same name, adding new plot twists and humor parodying the original movie. The musical was workshopped in 2006 and early 2007 with director Christopher Ashley and actors Jane Krakowski, Tony Roberts, and Cheyenne Jackson. The musical opened on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre on July 10, 2007, with a budget of $5 million.Kerry Butler and Cheyenne Jackson were the Broadway leads. Beane won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical.
  
  wn.com/Douglas_Carter_Beane
• Emile Ardolino
  Emile Ardolino (May 9, 1943 in Maspeth, New York – November 20, 1993) was an American film director, choreographer, and producer, best known for his films Dirty Dancing (1987) and Sister Act (1992).
  Emile Ardolino, son of Italian immigrants Emilio and Ester Ardolino, was born in a neighborhood of Queens. His father – who at the time of Emile's birth was 54 years old – died in 1949, when Emile was 6 years old.
  He began his career as an actor in off-Broadway productions, but soon moved to the production side of the business. In 1967, he founded Compton-Ardolino Films with Gardner Compton. In the 1970s and 1980s Ardolino worked for PBS; his profiles of dancers and choreographers for their Dance in America and Live from Lincoln Center series won him a total of 17 Emmy Award nominations. He actually won the Emmy three times.
  Ardolino won an Academy Award for Best Documentary for the 1983 movie He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'. He found commercial success with the 1987 sleeper hit Dirty Dancing, and went on to make several other mainstream films.
  
  wn.com/Emile_Ardolino
• 
  Etta James
  Etta James (born Jamesetta Hawkins; January 25, 1938 – January 20, 2012) was an American singer. Her style spanned a variety of music genres including blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, gospel and jazz. Starting her career in the mid-1950s, she gained fame with hits such as "Dance With Me, Henry", "At Last", "Tell Mama", and "I'd Rather Go Blind" for which she wrote the lyrics. She faced a number of personal problems, including drug addiction, before making a musical resurgence in the late 1980s with the album The Seven Year Itch.
  James is regarded as having bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll, and is the winner of six Grammys and 17 Blues Music Awards. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in both 1999 and 2008.Rolling Stone ranked James number 22 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time and number 62 on the list of the 100 Greatest Artists.
  Jamesetta Hawkins was born on January 25, 1938, in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Hawkins, who was only 14 at the time. Her father has never been identified. James speculated that her father was the pool player, Rudolf "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone, and met him briefly in 1987. Due to her mother being often absent from their Watts apartment, conducting relationships with various men, James lived with a series of foster parents, most notably "Sarge" and "Mama" Lu. James referred to her mother as "the Mystery Lady".
  
  wn.com/Etta_James
• Fontella Bass
  Fontella Bass (born July 3, 1940) is an American soul singer, who is best known for the 1965 R&B hit "Rescue Me", which she also co-wrote.
  Fontella Bass was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of gospel singer Martha Bass (a member of the Clara Ward Singers). At an early age, Fontella showed great musical talent – at five years old she was providing the piano accompaniment for her grandmother's singing at funeral services, she was singing in her church's choir at six years old and by the time she was nine she was accompanying her mother on tours throughout the American South and Southwest.
  Fontella continued touring with her mother until the age of sixteen. As a teenager, Bass was attracted by more secular music. Throughout high school she began singing R&B songs at local contests and fairs. At seventeen, she started her professional career working at the Showboat Club near Chain of Rocks, Missouri. In 1961, she auditioned on a dare for the Leon Claxton carnival show and was hired to play piano and sing in the chorus for two weeks, making $175 per week for the two weeks it was in town. She wanted to go on tour with Claxton but her mother refused and according to Bass "... she literally dragged me off the train". It was during this brief stint with Claxton that she was heard by vocalist Little Milton and his bandleader Oliver Sain who hired her to back Little Milton on piano for concerts and recording.
  
  wn.com/Fontella_Bass
• 
  Gene Greytak
  Gene Greytak (November 14, 1925 – February 28, 2010) was a retired real estate broker, made a career as an actor by impersonating Pope John Paul II because of his facial resemblance to the pontiff.
  Greytak was Catholic, and had at least the tacit permission of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to impersonate the pope. Greytak died on February 28, 2010.
  in Budapest, Hungary 1993
  in Budapest, Hungary 1993
  in Budapest, Hungary 1993
  
  
  
  
  
  wn.com/Gene_Greytak
• 
  Harvey Keitel
  Harvey Keitel (born May 13, 1939) is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma & Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and From Dusk Till Dawn, Jane Campion's The Piano, Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, James Mangold's Cop Land, Nicolas Roeg's Bad Timing, and Theo Angelopoulos's Ulysses' Gaze. He recently played Detective Lieutenant Gene Hunt on the American adaptation of Life on Mars.
  Keitel (/kaɪˈtɛl/ ky-TEL) was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the son of Miriam (née Klein) and Harry Keitel, Jewish immigrants from Romania and Poland. His parents owned and ran a luncheonette and his father also worked as a hat maker.
  Keitel grew up in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, with his sister, Renee, and brother, Jerry. He attended Abraham Lincoln High School. At the age of sixteen, he decided to join the United States Marine Corps, a decision that took him to Lebanon, during Operation Blue Bat. After his return to the United States, he was a court reporter for several years and was able to support himself before beginning his acting career.
  
  wn.com/Harvey_Keitel
• 
  Ian Lavender
  Arthur Ian Lavender (born 16 February 1946), better known as Ian Lavender, is an English stage, film and television actor, best known for his role as Private Frank Pike in the BBC comedy series Dad's Army.
  Born in Birmingham, England, he later went straight from Bournville Boys Technical School, later Bournville Grammar-Technical School for Boys, where he had appeared in many school dramatic productions including playing Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, with the assistance of a grant from the City of Birmingham. He quickly made his mark as a talented young actor and following his graduation in 1967 appeared on stage in Canterbury. His first television appearance was as the lead in an Rediffusion play entitled Half Hour Story: Flowers at my Feet in 1968.
  In 1968, Lavender was cast as Private Pike, the youngest member and 'stupid boy' of the platoon in the BBC sitcom Dad's Army. This made him a household name and gave him the great advantage of working alongside a number of experienced actors during his formative years, helping him to hone his acting skills. He appeared in the entire run of the series, and in the spinoff film released in 1971.
  
  wn.com/Ian_Lavender
• Isis Carmen Jones
  Isis J. Jones (sometimes credited as Isis Carmen Jones) is the actress who played a young Guinan in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Rascals". She later played the young version of Whoopi Goldberg's character in the movie Sister Act.
  
  wn.com/Isis_Carmen_Jones
• 
  Jenifer Lewis
  Jenifer Jeanette Lewis (born January 25, 1957) is an American film and television actress and singer.
  Lewis was born in Kinloch, Missouri, to a nurse's aide mother and a factory worker father. She attended Kinloch High School and then college at Webster University in Webster Groves, Missouri. Soon after she arrived in New York City, Lewis debuted on Broadway in a small role in Eubie (1979), the musical based on the work of Eubie Blake. She next landed the role of Effie White in the workshop of the Michael Bennett-directed musical Dreamgirls, but when the show moved to Broadway, Bennett chose Jennifer Holliday for the role.
  Lewis accepted a position as a Harlette, a back-up singer for Bette Midler which led to Lewis' first TV appearances on Midler's HBO specials. She also landed her first screen role as a result, appearing as one of the buxom chorines in the 'Otto Titsling' production number in the Midler vehicle Beaches (1988). At the same time, Lewis was developing her nightclub act, The Diva Is Dismissed, an autobiographical comedy and music show in New York City cabarets. She performed the show off-Broadway at the Public Theater.
  
  wn.com/Jenifer_Lewis
• Jerry Zaks
  Jerry Zaks (born September 7, 1946) is a German-born American stage and television director, and actor. He won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play and Drama Desk Award for directing The House of Blue Leaves, Lend Me A Tenor, and Six Degrees of Separation and the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical and Drama Desk Award for Guys and Dolls.
  Zaks was born in Stuttgart, Germany, the son of Holocaust survivors. His family emigrated to the United States in 1948, finally settling in Paterson, New Jersey. He graduated from Dartmouth College and received a Master of Fine Arts from Smith College.
  He made his Broadway acting debut in the original production of Grease as "Kenickie" and appeared in Tintypes in 1980. He made his directing debut in 1981 with the off-Broadway production of Christopher Durang's Beyond Therapy. He has directed many Broadway productions, both musicals and dramas.
  He has also directed many Off-Broadway productions, several at Playwrights Horizons and the Public Theatre. He directed the City Center Encores! productions of Girl Crazy (November 2009),Stairway to Paradise (May 2007), and Bye Bye Birdie (May 2004).
  
  wn.com/Jerry_Zaks
• 
  Jim Beaver
  James Norman "Jim" Beaver, Jr. (born August 12, 1950) is an American stage, film, and television actor, playwright, screenwriter, and film historian. He is perhaps most familiar to worldwide audiences as the gruff but tenderhearted prospector Whitney Ellsworth on the HBO Western drama series Deadwood, a starring role which brought him acclaim and a Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination for Ensemble Acting after three decades of supporting work in films and TV. He portrays Bobby Singer in the CW television series Supernatural. His memoir Life's That Way was published in April 2009.
  
  wn.com/Jim_Beaver
• Joseph Maher
  Joseph Maher (December 29, 1933 – July 17, 1998) was an Irish character actor who appeared in 43 films and was nominated for three Tony Awards and a Drama Desk Award for his supporting roles on the stage.
  Maher was born in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland, the son of Delia A. (née O'Malley) and Joseph Maher, a schoolteacher. One of ten children, he was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers.
  Maher's Broadway theatre credits include The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, King Henry V, The Royal Family, Night and Day, and Loot.
  Maher's film credits included For Pete's Sake, Heaven Can Wait, Just Tell Me What You Want, I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can, The Evil That Men Do, My Stepmother is an Alien, Sister Act, Funny Farm, I.Q., In & Out and The Out-of-Towners.
  Maher died of a brain tumor at his home in Los Angeles, California, on July 17, 1998.
  
  wn.com/Joseph_Maher
• 
  Kathy Najimy
  Kathy Ann Najimy (born February 6, 1957) is an American actress and comedian, most notable as Olive Massery on the television series Veronica's Closet, Sister Mary Patrick in Sister Act and the voice of Peggy Hill on the animated television series King of the Hill. Prior to her film work, she was best known for two Off Broadway shows with Mo Gaffney working as the duo Kathy and Mo. One of the shows became an HBO comedy special and garnered Najimy her first nationwide fan base.
  Najimy was born in San Diego, California, the daughter of Lebanese American parents Samia (née Massery) and Fred Najimy, a postal worker. She was raised Catholic and attended Crawford High School.
  Najimy's film career began in the early 1990s, with a number of off-beat minor roles, but her first major role was in the 1992 comedy Sister Act, in the role of Sister Mary Patrick. She reprised this role in 1993 in Sister Act 2. She also starred in Hocus Pocus with Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker as the Sanderson sisters. In 1997, she lent her voice to Warner Bros. Family Entertainment as Tilly the Hippo in the film Cats Don't Dance, alongside actors Scott Bakula, Jasmine Guy, John Rhys-Davies and Don Knotts, and has also played a role on the Nightmare Ned video game. In 1998, she made a cameo in Bride of Chucky as the maid who discovers Diane and Russ' bodies. In 2001, she co-starred in the hit comedy film Rat Race alongside John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Lovitz and Seth Green. She guest starred in That's So Raven. She has done four movies with Goldberg, (Soapdish, Sister Act 1 and 2, and Rat Race).
  
  wn.com/Kathy_Najimy
• 
  Katie Rowley Jones
  Katie Rowley Jones (born c. 1978) is a musical theatre actress best known for her portrayal of Nessarose in Wicked.
  Rowley Jones was born in Cambridge and grew up in North Hertfordshire. She received a B.A. (Hons) degree in law from the University of Nottingham in 2000. She began her professional training at the age of 22, studying musical theatre at the Guildford School of Acting (GSA), from which she graduated in 2001.
  Rowley Jones is best known for originating the role of Nessarose in the London production of Wicked. Performances began September 27, 2006, following previews from September 7. She played her final performance on June 7, 2008 and was replaced by Caroline Keiff.
  She recently originated the role of Sister Mary Robert in the London production of Sister Act. Performances began June 2, 2009, following previews from May 7. The show closed on October 30, 2010.
  
  wn.com/Katie_Rowley_Jones
• Lois de Banzie
  Lois de Banzie (born May 4, 1930) is a Scottish stage, film, and television actress. De Banzie is best known for her Drama Desk Award winning and Tony Award nominated performance in Paul Osborn's play Morning's at Seven. Her other Broadway credits include The Octette Bridge Club, Da, and The Last of Mrs. Lincoln.
  De Banzie has also had a prolific career in television and movies, mostly appearing in small to mid sized roles but with numerous guest starring parts on various television programs. Her television credits include Baby Talk, Bodies of Evidence, Cheers, Diagnosis: Murder, Family Ties, Home Improvement, Major Dad, Mama's Family, Matlock, Murder, She Wrote, Sisters, Taxi and Who's the Boss? among others.
  Her film credits include Addams Family Values, Annie, Arachnophobia, Big Business, Mass Appeal, Sister Act, and Tootsie among others.
  Her aunt was noted British actress Brenda De Banzie.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Lois_de_Banzie
• 
  Maggie Smith
  Dame Margaret Natalie "Maggie" Smith, DBE (born 28 December 1934) is an English film, stage and television actress. She has had an extensive career both on screen and in live theatre, and is known as one of Britain's pre-eminent actors. She made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 60 years. She has won numerous awards for acting, both for the stage and for film, including seven BAFTA Awards (five competitive awards and two special awards including the Bafta Fellowship in 1996), two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, two Emmy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, two SAG Awards and a Tony Award. Dame Maggie is the only actor ever to win this collective of awards and is one of the most successful and acclaimed actors of the film era.
  Her critically acclaimed films include Othello (1965), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), Travels with My Aunt (1972), California Suite (1978), Clash of the Titans (1981), A Room with a View (1985) and Gosford Park (2001). She has also appeared in a number of widely-popular films, including Hook (1991), Sister Act (1992) and as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series. She currently stars in the critically acclaimed drama Downton Abbey as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, for which she has won an Emmy.
  
  wn.com/Maggie_Smith
• 
  Marc Shaiman
  Marc Shaiman (born October 22, 1959) is a Tony, Grammy, Emmy winning and Oscar nominated American composer, lyricist, arranger, and performer for films, television, and theatre. He is perhaps best known for writing the music and co-writing the lyrics for the Broadway musical version of the cult John Waters film Hairspray.
  Shaiman was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Claire (née Goldfein) and William Robert Shaiman. He went to Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School. He lives in both Los Angeles and New York City. Shaiman and Scott Wittman have been partners in life and collaborators in theater since 1979.
  Shaiman started his career as a theatre/cabaret musical director. He then became vocal arranger for Bette Midler, eventually becoming her musical director and co-producer of many of her recordings, including The Wind Beneath My Wings and From a Distance. He helped create the material for her performance on the penultimate Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. His work with both Bette Midler and Billy Crystal led to his involvement on their films.
  
  wn.com/Marc_Shaiman
• Marguerite Derricks
  You know that dream you have where you're flying? That's what dance is like for me
  Marguerite Pomerhn-Derricks, professionally known as Marguerite Derricks, is a multi award-winning choreographer, ballerina and actress born in Buffalo, New York in 1961.
  While a youth, Derricks went to the National Ballet School of Canada and admired Karen Kain. It has been noted that Derricks was behind the choreography of two films similar in their subject matter, Striptease (1996) and Showgirls (1995). Some of her more noted works include the Austin Powers films, 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Donnie Darko (2001), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), and Spider-Man 3 (2007). After the first Austin Powers film, she became famous and increased her reputation with an advertisement for The Gap, "Go Go." During one interview, she said that with regard to her newfound popularity, "it all started with Mike [Myers]," (the star of Austin Powers) and added that "Go Go has changed my life."
  In 2006, Derricks choreographed Sister Act the Musical, which had its world premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse. At the turn of 2009, she served as the choreographer for director Kevin Tancharoen's remake of the hit movie, Fame (2009 film). She is currently the choreographer for Gregory Boyd and Frank Wildhorn's new musical "Wonderland"; a twist on the "Alice in Wonderland" children's story.
  
  wn.com/Marguerite_Derricks
• Mary Wickes
  Mary Wickes (June 13, 1910 – October 22, 1995) was an American film and television actress.
  Wickes was born as Mary Isabella Wickenhauser in St. Louis, Missouri, of German Irish Protestant extraction. She graduated at the age of eighteen with a degree in political science from Washington University in St. Louis, where she joined the Phi Mu women's fraternity and was initiated into Mortar Board in 1929. Wickes' first Broadway appearance was in Marc Connelly's The Farmer Takes a Wife in 1934 with Henry Fonda. She began acting in films in the late 1930s, and was also a member of the Orson Welles troupe on his radio drama Mercury Theatre of the Air. One of her earliest significant film appearances was in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942), reprising her stage role of "Nurse Preen".
  A tall (5'10"), gangling woman with a distinctive voice, Wickes would ultimately prove herself adept as a comedienne, but she first attracted attention in the film Now, Voyager (1942), as the wisecracking nurse who helped Bette Davis' character during her mother's illness. (She had already appeared earlier that year with Davis in The Man Who Came To Dinner, and appeared with Davis again six years later in June Bride.) Also in 1942 she had a large part in the Abbott and Costello comedy Who Done It?. She continued playing supporting roles in films during the next decade, usually playing wisecracking characters. A prime example was her deadpan characterization of Stella, the harassed housekeeper, in the Doris Day vehicles By the Light of the Silvery Moon and On Moonlight Bay. She played similar roles in two later movies with Rosalind Russell: The Trouble with Angels and Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows in the mid 1960s.
  
  wn.com/Mary_Wickes
• 
  Max Grodénchik
  Max Grodénchik (born November 12, 1952), also known as Michael Grodénchik, is an American stage, film, and television actor, best known for his role as Rom on the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
  Grodénchik was born in the Bronx, New York City, New York and lived in Queens New York. He attended the University of Buffalo from 1970-1974.^{[citation needed]} His father's name was Nathan.^{[citation needed]}
  Max worked in theater during the 1980s as Michael Grodénchik, where his performances received notice. Of his 1980 performance in John O'Keefe's All Night Long, Sarasota Herald-Tribune art reviewer Marcia Corbino wrote that Grodénchik was an intriguing actor who had "an enchanting, mobile comic face on which aberrant emotions flicker, spread, retreat, retrench and explode with a single instant."
  Grodénchik is better known for his portrayal of the fictional character Rom on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He had previously auditioned for the role of Rom's brother Quark, but the role was given to Armin Shimerman. The two both guest-appeared on opposite teams in the short lived British Sci-Fi Quiz show Space Cadets, in 1997.
  
  wn.com/Max_Grodénchik
• Michael Durrell
  Michael Durrell (born October 6, 1943, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American actor.
  He began his career in the role of attorney Peter Wexler on CBS in the soap opera The Guiding Light. In 1969 he appeared on stage in "Cock-A-Doodle-Dandy" at the Lyceum Theatre in New York City. Other television roles were as police Lieutenant Moraga in the short-lived CBS crime drama Shannon (1981–1982), starring Kevin Dobson in the title role, and then as Nicholas Stone from 1984-1985 on CBS's Alice. Another well-known role was in 1983 in the NBC science fiction miniseries called V and the 1984 sequel V: The Final Battle as Robert Maxwell and reprised his role in the first two episodes of V: The Series. He played D.A. Lloyd Burgess on the hit TV series Matlock from 1986 to 1990, and as Dr. John Martin, the father of Donna Martin on the hit Fox TV series Beverly Hills, 90210, in which he had a recurring role. He also guest starred in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Sanctuary". He appears in Season 5, Episode 10 of Dexter.
  
  wn.com/Michael_Durrell
• 
  Nancy Meyers
  Nancy Jane Meyers (born December 8, 1949) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. She is the writer, producer and director of several big-screen successes, including The Parent Trap (1998), Something's Gotta Give (2003), The Holiday (2006), and It's Complicated (2009). Her second film as director, What Women Want (2000), was at one point the most successful film ever directed by a woman, taking in $183 million in the United States.
  Meyers was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The younger of two daughters, she was raised in a Jewish household in the Drexel Hill area, a largely Catholic neighborhood. Her father, Irving, worked as an executive at a voting machines manufacturer, while her mother, Patricia (née Lemisch), was a homemaker and volunteer, who was also engaged in the Head Start Program and the Home for the Blind. After reading the Moss Hart biography Act One at the age of twelve, Meyers became interested in theater and started to act in local stage productions. Her interest in screenwriting did not emerge until she saw Mike Nichols' film The Graduate in 1967.
  
  wn.com/Nancy_Meyers
• 
  Natasha Katz
  Natasha Katz is a lighting designer for the theatre, dance, and opera. She was educated at Oberlin College and did an internship with Roger Morgan.
  Her first job on Broadway was as lighting designer for the play Pack of Lies in 1985, and she has gone on to design the lighting for 38 Broadway plays and musicals, including the Disney musical The Little Mermaid (2008) and The Addams Family (2010).
  Her first Tony Award nomination was for Beauty and the Beast in 1994. Other nominations and awards include:
  Katz has also designed the lighting at Niketown in New York City and London, and for The Big Bang at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Additional work includes lighting design for several productions of the American Ballet Theatre, and work for various opera companies including the New York City Opera.
  
  wn.com/Natasha_Katz
• Patina Miller
  Patina Miller (born November 6, 1984) is an American actress and singer. Miller is best known for originating the role of disco diva wannabe Deloris Van Cartier in the 2009 West End and 2011 Broadway productions of Sister Act the Musical.
  Born Patina Renea Miller in Pageland, South Carolina and raised in a single parent home, she was introduced to music at an early age and sang with the gospel choir at her local church. She attended South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts & Humanities and in 2006 graduated with a degree in musical theatre from Carnegie Mellon University, which she attended on a full scholarship. She has credited her time at Carnegie Mellon as a big part of her life, saying, "It was there that I studied and really realized that I could make my dream a reality. I'm so thankful to all my teachers who helped me to become the performer I am today. I'm so proud of my school and feel so blessed to have gotten such a wonderful education and made lifelong friends."
  In 2005, Miller was one of three finalists for the role of Effie White in Dreamgirls, which ultimately won Jennifer Hudson the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2007, she was cast in All My Children and appeared in 30 episodes of the daytime soap opera. She performed in a Central Park production of Hair in the summer of 2008 and was featured in the musical Romantic Poetry at the Manhattan Theatre Club that fall.
  
  wn.com/Patina_Miller
• Paul Rudnick
  Paul M. Rudnick (born December 29, 1957) is an American playwright, screenwriter and novelist. His plays include I Hate Hamlet, Jeffrey, The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Valhalla and The New Century. He also wrote for Premiere magazine under the pseudonym Libby Gelman-Waxner, and for Spy.
  Rudnick grew up in Piscataway Township, New Jersey. He is Jewish and openly gay.
  Rudnick also wrote the initial drafts for the film Sister Act. However, he left the project before completion, distancing himself from the final product by choosing the pseudonym "Joseph Howard" for the writing credit.
  The gay farce Social Disease (1986), reminiscent of the early Evelyn Waugh of Vile Bodies, and I'll Take It (1990) a tale of Jewish life in America. Extasy Club (1997).
  
  wn.com/Paul_Rudnick
• 
  Pope John Paul II
  Blessed Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Italian: Giovanni Paolo II, Polish: Jan Paweł II), born Karol Józef Wojtyła (Polish: [ˈkarɔl ˈjuzɛf vɔjˈtɨwa]; 18 May 1920, Wadowice, Republic of Poland – 2 April 2005, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in 2005. He was the second-longest serving Pope in history and the first non-Italian since 1523.
  John Paul II was acclaimed as one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century. He was instrumental in ending communism in his native Poland and eventually all of Europe. John Paul II significantly improved the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. Though criticised by progressives for upholding the Church's teachings against artificial contraception and the ordination of women, and by traditionalists for his support of the Church's Second Vatican Council and its reform, he was also widely praised for his firm, orthodox Catholic stances.
  
  wn.com/Pope_John_Paul_II
• Richard Halsey
  Richard Halsey is an American film editor with more than 60 credits from 1970 onwards. An alumnus of Hollywood High School, he won an Academy Award for Best Film Editing at the 49th Academy Awards for editing Rocky with Scott Conrad and has been nominated for one BAFTA and one Emmy Award. He often works with his wife Colleen and they are credited together. Both have been elected to membership in American Cinema Editors (A.C.E.); Halsey has been a member since 1988. He is now living in the Hollywood Hills.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Richard_Halsey
• Richard Portnow
  Richard Portnow (born January 26, 1947) is an American actor known for such films and television shows as Good Morning, Vietnam, Barton Fink, Se7en, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, The Spirit, Law Abiding Citizen, Private Parts, Fallen Arches, Double Down, Spring Break '83, The Sopranos, Hannah Montana and Boston Legal.
  A veteran of stage, film and television with a variety of characters to his credit, Richard Portnow was named one of the "Actors We Love" from the actors' trade newspaper Back Stage West and said, "Portnow knows exactly how to hook an audience with every character."
  Portnow graduated with a BA degree as a speech and theater major from Brooklyn College.
  Portnow played the role of defense attorney Harold "Mel" Melvoin on the Emmy-winning HBO series The Sopranos (1999), the lawyer for Uncle Junior, whom he is able to keep out of prison and managed to get placed under house arrest instead. His rates for defending Corrado Soprano (Uncle Juniors's full name) are astronomical, but as Uncle June has said, "Mel, you're worth every penny". He has held the role since the show's inception in 1999.
  
  wn.com/Richard_Portnow
• Scott Rudin
  Scott Rudin (born July 14, 1958) is an American film producer and a theatrical producer. In 2012, Rudin became one of the few people who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award, the first producer to do so.
  Scott Rudin was born in New York City, NY, on July 14, 1958, and raised in a Jewish family in the town of Baldwin on Long Island. At the age of sixteen, he started working as an assistant to theatre producer Kermit Bloomgarden. Later, he worked for producers Robert Whitehead and Emanuel Azenberg. In lieu of attending college, Rudin took a job as a casting agent and ended up starting his own company. His newly minted firm cast numerous Broadway shows, including Annie (1977) for Mike Nichols. He also cast PBS's Verna: USO Girl (1978), starring Sissy Spacek and William Hurt, and the films King of the Gypsies (1978), The Wanderers (1979), Simon (1980) with Alan Arkin and Resurrection (1980). Rudin is openly homosexual.
  In 1980, Rudin moved to Los Angeles, taking up employment at Edgar J. Scherick Associates, where he served as producer on a variety of films including I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1981), the NBC miniseries Little Gloria... Happy at Last (1982) and the Oscar-winning documentary He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin' (1983).
  
  wn.com/Scott_Rudin
• Sheila Hancock
  Sheila Cameron Hancock, CBE (born 22 February 1933) is an English actress and author.
  Sheila Hancock was born in Blackgang on the Isle of Wight, the daughter of Ivy Louise (née Woodward) and Enrico Cameron Hancock, who was a publican. Her sister Billie is nine years older (and worked as a variety artist until retiring to Antibes in 2003 at the age of 79). After wartime evacuation, Hancock attended Dartford County Grammar School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
  She worked in repertory during the 1950s and made her West End debut in 1958, replacing Joan Sims in the play Breath of Spring. She then appeared in Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop production of Make Me An Offer in 1959, and her other early West End appearances included the revue One Over the Eight with Kenneth Williams in 1961, and starring in Rattle of a Simple Man in 1962. In 1965, she made her Broadway debut in Entertaining Mr Sloane. In 1978, she played Miss Hannigan in the original London cast of the musical Annie and two years later, she played Mrs Lovett in the original London production of the musical Sweeney Todd.
  
  wn.com/Sheila_Hancock
• 
  Toni Kalem
  Toni Kalem (born August 29, 1956) is an American actress, screenwriter and director. Kalem is best known for her portrayal of Angie Bonpensiero on the HBO series, The Sopranos.
  Kalem has appeared in several films such as Double Jeopardy, Private Benjamin, Sister Act, The Wanderers, Eyes of the Beholder, Silent Rage and The Boy Who Drank Too Much. Her television credits include guest appearances on Starsky and Hutch, MacGyver, Another World and Police Woman. During the sixth season of The Sopranos, Kalem was elevated from guest star to series regular for her character Angie Bonpensiero, the widow of Sal "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero who runs a body shop in partnership with Tony Soprano.
  In 1999, Kalem wrote and directed the film A Slipping Down Life. In 2004, she wrote the fifty-sixth episode for The Sopranos called "All Happy Families...".
  Sundance Film Festival
  
  
  
  wn.com/Toni_Kalem
• Victoria Clark
  Victoria Clark (born October 10, 1959) is an American musical theatre singer and actress. Clark has performed in many Broadway musicals and in other theatre, film and television work, and her soprano voice can be heard on numerous cast albums and several animated films. In 2008 she released her first solo album.
  Clark won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical in 2005 for her performance in the musical The Light in the Piazza. She also won the Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, and the Joseph Jefferson Award for her performances in this role.
  Clark was born and raised in Texas, the daughter of Lorraine and Jim Clark. She studied the piano and attended the Hockaday School, an all-girls school in Dallas. She also attended the Interlochen Arts Academy before going to Yale University, graduating in 1982. At Yale, at the age of eighteen, she sang the role of Mabel in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance. She also sang the title role in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience and directed a production of Ruddigore for the Yale Gilbert & Sullivan Society. After college, Clark studied at New York University’s Musical Theatre Master’s Program as a stage director and began to direct operas and musicals professionally. Although she continues to direct, she has primarily focused on singing and acting.
  
  wn.com/Victoria_Clark
• Wendy Makkena
  Wendy Makkena (born October 4, 1963) is an American actress.
  Born in New York City, Makkena started her acting career in 1986 and appeared in the TV show Santa Barbara. She later landed her first movie role in Eight Men Out. She has made various guest appearances in TV shows such as Law & Order, Monsters, NYPD Blue, House, and NCIS.
  In 1992 she landed a starring role in the popular movie Sister Act as the shy but talented singing nun Sister Mary Robert (although her singing voice was dubbed by Andrea Robinson), a role she reprised in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit the following year.
  She appeared in various other television roles until 1997, when she starred in Air Bud, followed by the independent film Finding North. She continued appearing on television shows such as The Job, Oliver Beene, and Listen Up!
  She made a guest appearance on House in 2007. She also made a guest appearance on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2009.
  Makkena also appeared on the pilot episode of Chuck as an unnamed National Intelligence Director. Some casting lists have her appearing as General Mary Beckman, a rank and surname that would be re-used in future episodes for the recurring character of NSA director Gen. Diane Beckman. The actress in that role, Bonita Friedericy, believes both Beckmans to be the same character. Additionally, Beckman's identification card, shown on "Chuck's Chart" (first seen in the second season episode, "Chuck Versus the Lethal Weapon", and clearly referring to Friedericy's character by its reference to her relationship with Roan Montgomery) reads "Gen. M. Beckman".
  
  wn.com/Wendy_Makkena
• 
  Whoopi Goldberg
  Whoopi Goldberg ( /ˈhwʊpi/, born Caryn Elaine Johnson; November 13, 1955) is an American comedienne, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.
  Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple (1985) playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won her first Golden Globe Award for her role in the film. In 1990, she starred as Oda Mae Brown, a psychic helping a slain man (Patrick Swayze) find his killer in the blockbuster film Ghost. This performance won her a second Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Notable later films include Sister Act and Sister Act 2, The Lion King, Made in America, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Girl, Interrupted and Rat Race. She is also acclaimed for her roles as the bartender Guinan in Star Trek: The Next Generation and as Terry Doolittle in Jumpin' Jack Flash. More recently, she had performed the voice of Stretch in Toy Story 3 and made an appearance in Glee as Carmen Tibideaux.
  
  wn.com/Whoopi_Goldberg

Sister Act (1992)

Genres

• Comedy
• Crime
• Music

Taglines:

No sex. No booze. No men. No way.

Quotes:

Reverend Mother: I am a relic, and I have misplaced my tambourine.

Monsignor O'Hara: You took a vow of hospitality for all in need.::Reverend Mother: I lied.

[in a casino, to a group of nuns all dressed in full habit]::Reverend Mother: Brace yourself, sisters. Spread out and look for Mary Clarence. Try to blend in.

Biker #2: This turns into a nun's bar, I'm outta here.

Eddie: Nice church, huh?::Delores: Yes, very nice. Look, what am I gonna be? Quasimodo in the belfry? What is this?::Eddie: I want you to stay here for a while.::Delores: Where?::Eddie: In the convent. It's the safest place in the world. You think Vince is gonna look for you in a convent?::Delores: Wh... in the what?::Eddie: The convent.::Delores: You must be out of your... You know what? I'm gonna go back and work this out with Vince. You're a lunatic! I'm not gonna be in no damn convent with these people. These people don't even have sex!

[first lines]::[in a classroom in 1968]::Nun: Who can name all the apostles? Yes, Delores?::Little Delores: John, Paul, George... and Ringo!::[the children laugh]::Nun: Delores Wilson, you are the most unruly, disobedient girl in this school! Now, I want you to march right up to that blackboard and write the names of all the apostles alphabetically.::[Little Delores walks up to the blackboard and writes "John, Paul, Peter" and "Elvis" in big letters, underlined. The children laugh again]::Nun: This is enough! You are hopeless, and I wash my hands of you. Mark my words, Delores. If you continue on this disruptive track, it will lead straight to the devil. Have you any idea what girls like you become?::[Little Delores smiles]

[at the end of her song at the Moonlight Lounge]::Delores: Good night, ladies and gentlemen!::Michelle, Tina: [singing] Heat wave!::Delores: You don't give a shit.::Michelle, Tina: [singing] Heat wave!::Delores: Let's get the hell outta here.::Michelle, Tina: [singing] Heat wave!::[the song ends and only two people applaud]

[after seeing Delores on TV, when she should be hiding]::Eddie: I'm gonna kill her! I'm gonna kill her myself!

Sister Mary Robert: I'm so nervous. What if I forget the words?::Sister Mary Clarence: You're gonna go straight to hell.

Delores: [after putting on the habit] Oh, no! No, no, no! I can't do this. I'm sorry. This is fine for covering a little bulge, but now I've got holster hips!::Reverend Mother: People wish to kill you. Anyone who's met you I imagine. A disguise is necessary to protect us all. While you are here, you will conduct yourself as a nun. Only I will know who and what you truly are. You will draw no attention to yourself whatsoever.::Delores: But look at me! I'm a nun! I'm a - I'm a penguin!::Reverend Mother: As from now and until you leave, you are Sister Mary Clarence.::Delores: Mary Clarence? Like Clarence Williams III from The Mod Squad?::Reverend Mother: Mary is in deference to our Holy Mother. The Clarence is in honor of Saint Clarence of Concordia. There are 3 vows every nun must accept: The vow of poverty.::Delores: Mmm.::Reverend Mother: The vow of obedience.::Delores: Mm-Hmm.::Reverend Mother: And the vow of chastity.::Delores: I am outta here with that.

• timeline:
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003
• 2002
• 2001

• timeline:
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003
• 2002
• 2001