This Thursday, Broadway in Bryant Park kicks off its season with a performance by Rashidra Scott. Actually, the lunchtime concert series is featuring numbers from Sister Act, but Scott will be singing two of Deloris' songs. Scott understudies the lead role of Deloris Van Cartier, a lounge singer who hides out as a nun in a convent after witnessing her gangster boyfriend kill someone. She has yet to go at a performance of Sister Act for Patina Miller—who was nominated for a Tony for her portrayal of Deloris—but the Bryant Park concert will not be her first time singing one of Deloris' songs for an audience. In early April, while Sister Act was still in previews, Scott performed "Fabulous, Baby!" in At This Performance, the concert series showcasing Broadway understudies. At the time, Scott had not yet had a rehearsal for Deloris' role.
But even just playing one of the nuns whose choir is transformed by Deloris—Scott's regular ensemble role in Sister Act—she is having the time of her life. "Omigod, this show is such a gift," says Scott, who also plays Michelle, one of Deloris' backup singers in her lounge act. "We are all so happy, so happy. The show after the Tonys, I got to about 50th and Broadway and I could see the marquee and I, honestly, almost started running—I couldn't get to the theater fast enough to be back with everybody."
As a bonus, Scott and the Sister Act company got to meet President Obama on June 23, when their show was a benefit for his reelection campaign. Obama posed for photos with the cast after the performance and made sure to shake everyone's hand. He also chatted them up a bit—commenting, Scott reports, that they "must be hot in those costumes." With the president came the Secret Service, who were at the theater for about a week beforehand and in "every nook and cranny" during the performance Obama attended, according to Scott. Due to security, cast members were not allowed to go to their dressing rooms or the bathroom throughout the second act, and they had to change in the lobby restrooms after the show.
The Sister Act fund-raiser was hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, who played Deloris in the 1992 Sister Act movie and is a producer of the Broadway version. Even when she's not bringing the leader of the free world to the theater, Goldberg has helped keep spirits up at the Broadway Theatre. "She loves to send us junk-food treats backstage," says Scott, adding she's particularly appreciative as "a junk-food junkie." Mostly, though, Scott credits director Jerry Zaks for making her job a pleasure. "He's very protective of us and of the show, and that has made for such a great experience," she says. "The first day—before we started learning any music, before anyone else said anything—the first thing that Jerry did was to sit us all down and say 'This is a positive environment. We are here for each other, this is where we feel free and comfortable to make mistakes. Don't feel that anyone's going to laugh at you or judge you. This is where we get to experiment and play around and see what works—if it doesn't work, I'll tell you. But don't give each other notes, don't let anyone else give you notes.' If anybody tries to give us a note, whether we're around the theater or we go out, he has directed us to say 'Thank you very much, now my director told me to tell you to go eff yourself.'"
Just three and a half years ago, Scott was having a harder time in her Broadway debut. After only a few months in New York, she got a featured role (Gary Coleman) in a Tony-winning hit show, Avenue Q, but to this day describes it as "not a good fit." Though she acknowledges, "I made Q not a good fit for myself. I was so in my head about being new and green and put pressure on myself to show people why I deserved to be there." In a more positive summation, she adds: "It was a great learning experience...a good lesson on how to just be in the moment—don't concern yourself with notes and corrections or suggestions, be honest and speak from the heart."
Scott was in Avenue Q for six months starting in December 2007, then filled in as Gary Coleman for a week shortly before the show closed in late summer 2009. By then, she'd done another Broadway show and several featured roles regionally. "I didn't put any pressure on myself," she says of the second go-round on Avenue Q. "I just went in and had fun with it, and it felt immensely better. I was able to breathe and it felt so good!"
