Dan Goggin feels positively blessed. Over the past twenty-five years, his little-show-that-could, NUNSENSE, has defied the odds to become one of the most oft-performed musicals in the world. In honor of its twenty-fifth anniversary, the Little Sisters of Hoboken have returned to the Cherry Lane Theatre (where the show opened a quarter century ago) for a special silver anniversary production.

“We’re having a great time!” says composer-lyricist-librettist-director Dan Goggin. “I just directed a production at a 900-seat outdoor theatre, and now we’re back at the 179-seat Cherry Lane – how did we ever do the show on this tiny stage?”

Goggin says the return of the show was totally unexpected. Cherry Lane Artistic Director Angelina Fiordellisi approached him about NUNSENSE taking part in the theatre’s Heritage Series. Every year, the Cherry Lane launches revivals of landmark plays that were originally produced under its roof throughout its rich 85-year history. “She thought it would be great fun to produce NUNSENSE, and I thought, wow, let’s all get together and do it again!”

As fans of the show know, NUNSENSE concerns five Dominican sisters who put on an amateur variety show (on the set of a junior high production of Grease) to raise funds to bury some sisters who died from a batch of bad vichyssoise soup prepared by Sister Julia, Child of God.

Audiences are getting pretty much the same “habit-forming” experience they got in 1985, with a few slight exceptions: a mention of Mother Superior’s BetaMax has been updated to refer to her 3D TV, and a joke about Michael Jackson has been excised in light of his death. The show is a bit louder, too. “When we started out, we did the show without a sound system,” Goggin says, “but over the years people have gotten so used to a ramped-up sound. We’ve added microphones to help kick up the excitement of the audience with a fuller sound.”

Jeanne Tinker, "Sister Mary Annette," Bambi Jones and Bonnie Lee. Photo by Michael Feldser

Dan Goggin came to new York as a fresh-faced young singer, and he made his Broadway debut in the 1963 production of Luther, starring Albert Finney. He and a fellow cast member formed a folk duo, and Goggin soon began writing original songs for themselves. As a gag gift, Goggin received a mannequin of a Dominican brother, and he transformed the character into the star of a series of greeting cards.

Over the years he began bringing the character (and others based on his Catholic elementary school teachers) to life via music and lyrics. In the early 80s, he presented a showcase of these songs at the Duplex Cabaret. By adding a story throughline and focusing solely on the sisters, the show eventually made the leap from cabaret to theatre. The early weeks of NUNSENSE at the Cherry Lane Theatre were uncertain, but as Goggin says, “one day, it just popped!” After 3,672 performances over nine years, NUNSENSE finally closed in 1994, and is now the third longest-running Off-Broadway musical of all time (behind the I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change and the original production of The Fantasticks

But the NUNSENSE story didn’t end there. Nunsense 2: The Sequel played Off-Broadway in 1994, and Goggin has created five other heavenly musicals (which have become staples at regional and stock theatres across the country). A drag version of the original show, Nunsense A-Men! ran during the 1998-1999 season at the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre Off-Broadway, and a "Cabaret Class" spin-off featuring songs performed in the various editions by the streetwise wanna-be star, Sister Robert Anne, premiered regionally in 2009.

NUNSENSE has been translated into 21 languages, and has been produced over 5,000 times around the world. To what does Goggin attribute the show’s success? “I’d love to say it’s the brilliant writing,” he laughs, “but I think that everyone’s looking for a couple hours to forget their troubles. Laughing and being silly is a really good thing. I’m blessed to have the same sense of humor as others.”

And Goggin doesn’t tire of his creations. “Every (new musical based on these characters) is different. The flavor of the music changes, from the razz-ma-tazz of the Las Vegas musical Nunsensations to the Klezmer influence on Meshuggah-Nuns. In the various musicals, different characters drift in and out of the stories which build on each other. Goggin finds, too, that “every time a cast member changes, the personality of the show changes. A jolly Mother Superior may serve as comic relief to a more stern Sister Hubert, or vice versa.”

As honored as Goggin is of his portrait hanging at Sardi’s, he’s even more proud of the fact that NUNSENSE, with its relatively simple production values, has often been performed as a benefit production, and has effectively saved over one hundred theatres from bankruptcy. “This silly little show is doing something important in the theatre world,” Goggin says. He adds that the Cherry Lane is “in dire straights – I hope that the current production can help get the theatre back on solid footing.” Here's praying that NUNSENSE can continue to work its divine intervention.

The performance schedule for NUNSENSE is Tuesdays at 7pm, Wednesdays at 8pm, Thursdays at 8pm, Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm and 8pm, and Sundays and 3pm. Tickets may be purchased via telecharge.com or in person at The Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce Street. Prices: $46, $51.

Stephanie Wahl, Bambi Jones, Bonnie Lee, Jeanne Tinker and Maria Montana tackle that temptation with a timestep.Photo by Michael Feldser