Starring as Deloris Van Cartier in Sister Act, Casey Donovan raises her voice and takes us to musical heaven, aided and abetted by the nuns she leads in the convent choir.

Other scenes in the musical are decidedly more earth-bound, and the action slumps at times, but the exuberant choral numbers featuring the “sister act” are so uplifting they bring the musical home.

Casey Donovan and cast members of Sister Act. Photo © Daniel Boud

Based on the popular 1992 film starring Whoopi Goldberg, Sister Act is a lightweight musical comedy. Set in 1970s Philadelphia, lounge singer and wannabe diva Deloris inadvertently sees her gangster boyfriend Curtis (James Bryers) murder a possible informant.

With her own life now at risk, she flees to the police station and is placed in witness protection at a struggling convent by police lieutenant “Sweaty” Eddie Souther (Raphael Wong). Deloris is horrified, as is the Mother Superior (Genevieve Lemon), but their objections are overruled by the Monsignor (Damien Bermingham).

When the exasperated Mother Superior demands that Deloris – now Sister Mary Clarence – join the convent’s painfully bad choir (“There are no words”), she takes over and...