Not all is as it seems in 'Nunsense'

Actually, all of the nuns in the musical comedy, opening tonight, are pretty funny. But Sister Mary Hubert is a most unusual nun: She’s a man.

The Little Sisters of Hoboken’s mistress of novices is portrayed by playhouse artistic director Jeff Kingsbury.

The musical — in which the nuns put on a variety show to raise money to bury a few bodies — ran off-Broadway for 10 years, won four Outer Circle Critics Awards, and has been translated into at least 26 languages.

“It’s more than a feel-good comedy – it’s hysterical,” said Troy Arnold Fisher, the play’s director and the playhouse’s musical director. “With the way things are in the world, a really bust-your-gut-laughing show seemed like appropriate programming.”

Among the women who’ve played the nuns are Phyllis Diller, Rue McClanahan and Sally Struthers.

But Kingsbury himself has played Sister Hubert three times.

Doesn’t it seem odd to people that a man could be a nun?

“It’s really believable,” Fisher said. “There are nuns who look more masculine than Jeff does in a habit.”

In fact, back in the days when Kingsbury wasn’t a household name and face, many people didn’t even notice. “The first time I played it, there were scores of people who did not know that I was a man,” Kingsbury said.

He doesn’t play the nun as if he’s in drag, either. “I don’t play it with any level of femininity whatsoever,” he said. “I think I look like a man in a nun’s habit.”

The character, however, is a very strong nun. In fact, she wears combat boots.

“I didn’t have nuns as teachers,” Kingsbury said, “but people frequently say, ‘You actually remind me of a teacher that I had.’ ”

The play was the first one produced by Capital Playhouse in its current theater.

“We cast five nuns, and we rehearsed for one month,” Fisher said. “During that month, we put a floor in the space, and we put in a light grid and we did ‘Nunsense’ and ‘Nunsense 2,’ alternating every night.

“It was an ambitious start.”

But Fisher had directed the show many times before that — including locally for the now-defunct Abbey Players. It was when he was casting that production, about 15 years ago, that he discovered how perfectly Kingsbury fit the part.

Kingsbury was the stage manager, and Fisher asked him to read some of Sister Hubert’s lines while auditioning actresses to play the Reverend Mother.

“No one who auditioned had really struck me for the part,” Fisher recalls. “And as Jeff was reading, I thought, ‘That’s exactly who Sister Hubert is.’ ”