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Armani Ponder-Keith grew up watching and loving the movie “Sister Act,” which starred Whoopi Goldberg in the role of Deloris Van Cartier.
Now she’s performing the role of Deloris in the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts’ production of the Broadway musical adaptation of “Sister Act.”
“It was a long time ago, so I don’t really remember it all. I recently had to watch the movie when I found out I was playing the role just to get a refresher, and I loved it,” Ponder-Keith said. “The number that stuck with me was ‘Joyful, Joyful’ with Lauren Hill in ‘Sister Act 2,’ I want to say, and I’ve just had a love for it. It’s like a comfort movie for my family. So getting to do this show and for them to come see it is kind of like bring ing it back to home.”
Semaj’ Donnell Byrd, in his second season at the Wagon Wheel, plays Eddie Souther.
“I also grew up watching ‘Sister Act.’ My mom put me and my sister on very early. I was around 7, 9ish when I watched the first one, and we watched ‘Sister Act 2’ all the time. ‘Oh Happy Day’ is like a mantra in my house,” he said, noting his opinion on “Sister Act” hasn’t changed over the years. “It’s kind of made me who I am today in some aspects.”
Ponder-Keith said her family thinks the musical is the same as the movie.
“I’m like, ‘I’m not playing Whoopi!’ They’re like, ‘You’re playing Whoopi!’ I’m like, ‘I’m not playing Whoopi! I’m playing Deloris.’ But it’s around the same storyline,” she said.
In musical theater, the stakes in a show are always “heightened,” Byrd said. “So the movie is a lot more toned down, the jokes are a lot more sly. In this show that we’re doing, there are a lot more on-the-nose, in-your-face (moments) so that an audience of Broadway caliber will get it and laugh every time.”
The music in the Tony-nominated Broadway show is different than in the film version.
“It’s different music. The song that Sweaty Eddie sings is ‘I Could Be That Guy,’ and it’s kind of a spinoff of ‘My Guy,’” Ponder-Keith explained.
Tony- and eight-time Oscar winner Alan Menken (“Newsies,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Little Shop of Horrors”) wrote the music for “Sister Act.” Ponder-Keith said you can kind of hear the similarities in the score of the music for “Sister Act” to his other shows.
“It’s just so interesting because you can hear the melody of ‘Little Mermaid’ in there,” she said. “... So like the song that Deloris sings, ‘Sister Act’ at the end of Act II, it reminds me so much of the song ‘Home’ from ‘Beauty & The Beast.’ It’s not the exact same, you wouldn’t be able to guess it’s ‘Home,’ but it’s sort of the same.”
As for the themes in the musical of “Sister Act,” Ponder-Keith said they’re similar to those in the movie but “they’re more high-end and it’s more so harped on with friendship and love and community. And I think some of the songs kind of do hit on the nose like ‘Sister Act’ because she’s like, ‘I have my sisters by my side’ and it’s more honing on the family aspect.”
Byrd said the musical’s book writers did a good job with keeping the story true to the original text of the movie.
“Just when it comes to musicals, you have to hit things more on the nose because you can’t rewind. You have to be able to understand what’s going on. So like my song, I repeat myself all the time about ‘I could be that guy,’ giving different analogies about what I could be doing, so that the audience understands this is not who I am, this is who I want to be in the moment. And then I go on this whole discovery of who Eddie is,” he explained.
In “Sister Act,” Deloris, a singer, witnesses a murder and is put in protective custody in the one place the cops are sure she won’t be a found: a convent. Disguised as a nun, she finds herself at odds with both the rigid lifestyle and uptight Mother Superior. Eddie is the police officer who puts Deloris into protective custody. During the course of the show, the relationship between Deloris and Eddie blossoms.
“Spoiler alert! We do end up getting together at the end of the show,” Byrd said.
Ponder-Keith said their relationship in the musical is a little more romantic than in the film, but it’s short.
“It’s a quick moment of when we decide that we want to be a thing. We don’t really say out loud, ‘Hey, do you want to date me?’ But there’s an intimate moment that is reassuring of ‘let’s do this,’ because more so throughout the show it’s kind of Deloris figuring out how to get out of this situation with her last lover, Curtis, and going through the convent with the nuns,” she said.
Byrd said Deloris has so much going on, the least of her concerns is Eddie and Eddie just wants Deloris to be safe. Ponder-Keith said Deloris just wants to be famous, not die, but she doesn’t have anyone until she finds the sisters at the convent.
She said acting with the other actresses who play the nuns in the show is like a huge sisterhood.
“When we started doing rehearsals, it was just kind of like just going through the motions and like, ‘OK, these are the nuns and this is Deloris, she’s new.’ And then when we started kind of doing more of the numbers like ‘It’s Good to be a Nun,’ each nun that is in this show has a completely different personality, completely different age, completely different voice and it’s just like so funny, it’s like all these different nuns and people come from different walks of life and different ages and they’re just here to just support and be Deloris’ family so that Deloris can lean on them, and Deloris doesn’t realize that that’s what they’re trying to do,” Ponder Keith said.
Part of the storyline in “Sister Act” is Deloris teaching the nuns to sing well and together.
Byrd said he comes from a family of singers and performers himself, having grown up in the church.
“So from an early age, we either had to play an instrument or sing. You couldn’t be in my family if you didn’t do one or the other, so this show, especially ‘Raise Your Voice,’ which is a song where Deloris is teaching the nuns and the sisters how to sing, I resonate with because I’m like, ‘Uh-oh, my grandfather was a choir director and he is like “that’s not the note, that’s not the note.”‘ And he would say, ‘do it again, do it again.’ And I think that’s who I learned to sing from, from my mom and my grandfather who really showed me to be intentional with the notes,” he said.
In her case, Ponder-Keith, who recently graduated from Ohio Northern University, said she grew up with a bunch of athletes in her family. Her mom and aunt were gymnasts, while her father was in the league.
“I was just the one person who was like, ‘I love theater and I love to sing.’ And then I grew up with people in the church and just singing,” she said. “I have like, not perfect pitch, but I can hear when something’s wrong in my every day life,” she stated.
Playing Deloris in “Sister Act,” she continued, has helped her to train her ear better.
Ponder-Keith, an Akron, Ohio, native, plans to chase her own dreams after her contract with the Wagon Wheel is completed by moving to New York July 29. Her end goal would be Broadway, but she’ll be happy to share her art in any way she can and being somebody on the stage others can look up to.
Speaking of looking up to others, Wagon Wheel’s 2016 production of “Sister Act” had Morgan Anita Wood playing Deloris. Wood is now on Broadway as Eliza Hamilton in “Hamilton.” Ponder-Keith got to meet Wood.
“Having that moment with her at the stage door, I literally left bawling because that was just like a surreal moment and how ironic that I get to see her and have a conversation with her about this role, basically her blessing, before coming to Wagon Wheel,” she said. “So I would love to be on Broadway, love to be on a national tour, I would love to be on a tour and be someone’s backup singer, backup dancer. I just love to perform and put my talents out there. So any way, shape or form that people can see that, I’m done,” she said.
Byrd, originally from Rockledge, Fla., said he has a similar sentiment. He has one more year of schooling at Emerson College in Boston, and then he wants to move to New York and do the “whole audition scene, perform. Obviously, I want to be on Broadway, do national tours, but I also want to teach. I found over the past two, three years that I have a fondness in teaching the next generation. I teach dance, I teach voice, I teach acting through song at home, and I have found that has really rejuvenated my passion for the arts.”
“Sister Act” is at the Wagon Wheel July 3-12. Tickets can be purchased at the box office, 2515 E. Center St., Warsaw; by phone at 574-267-8041; or online at wagonwheelcenter.org.
