Originating as a line of greeting cards, Goggin expanded the concept into a cabaret show that ran for 38 weeks, and eventually into a full-length musical.
The Nunsense concept originated as a line of greeting cards featuring a nun offering tart quips with a clerical slant.
The original production of Nunsense, directed by Goggin, opened on December 12, 1985 at the Off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre, moving to the Douglas Fairbanks Theater for the majority of its ten-year run.
[1] It has grossed over $500 million worldwide,[2] and more than 25,000 women have played in Nunsense productions worldwide, including Edie Adams, Maxine Audley, Kaye Ballard, Honor Blackman, Pat Carroll, Peggy Cass, Phyllis Diller, Sally Struthers, Louise Gold, Maggie Fitzhugh and JoAnne Worley.
Upon discovering the disaster, Mother Superior had a vision in which she was told to start a greeting card company to raise funds for the burials.
With the deceased nuns on ice in the deep freeze, they decide to stage a variety show in the Mount Saint Helen's School auditorium to raise the necessary amount.
Naturally, VCRs and camcorders are now no longer such current or expensive devices, so modern presentations of the show tend to substitute newer or more generic terms such as "home entertainment system" or a "plasma TV".
Reverend Mother comes back on stage, only to be stopped by Sister Robert Anne, who pleads with her to let her sing a solo.
Reverend Mother returns and apologizes, but is shocked to hear from Mary Amnesia that the Jersey Board of Health has sent an inspector to the convent just that afternoon.
Robert Anne rushes on stage to give Reverend Mother a bag that she seems troubled about, claiming she found it in one of the girls' bathrooms.
The rest of the Sisters notice, and put on a hastily thrown-together tap number to close the first act and get her off the stage ("Tackle That Temptation").
The rest of the nuns rush on afterwards, led by an especially distraught Reverend Mother, who has received a summons from the Board of Health that "We've Got to Clean Out the Freezer".
Amnesia and Hubert return with Sister Julia, Child of God's cookbook and put on a short cooking show segment, which is interrupted by the fact that the book is full of misprints and innuendos.
Amnesia remains on stage after the rest leave, and decides to tell the audience a story about who she would be if she wasn't a nun ("I Could've Gone to Nashville").
In the fourth, Meshuggah-Nuns!, the sisters are on a "Faiths of All Nations" cruise when the on-board cast of Fiddler on the Roof gets seasick, prompting the ship's captain to ask them to put on a show.
While trying to present their all-new variety show, the sisters have to contend with announcements from the bowling alley loudspeakers as well as activity on the lanes.
[4] Nunsense A-Men, the original show with all the characters portrayed by men in drag, was staged in Brazil as Novicas Rebeldes before transferring to New York City in 1998.