It’s SUNDAY SHOWSTOPPER SNIPPET time, once again! At the beginning of this month, I promised that, in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, every Sunday Showstopper would be dedicated to those who have been touched by this disease – the patients, the survivors, and those we have lost.
Today’s final Showstopper of October is dedicated to the “Pink Sisters” – the survivors and patients who have created lifelong bonds of love and support through the commonality of this diagnosis.
Despite the support and love a cancer patient may receive from their friends, family and physicians, nobody truly understands the fear, body and life changes as does another survivor. Pink Sisters come in all ages, all sizes, all nationalities, races, religions, political leanings and socioeconomic groups. Breast Cancer does not discriminate – it just takes, and takes. As a Pink Sister, what I’ve learned is, that it also ‘gives’ – the gift of friendship and support I have received, and the honor of paying that gift forward to other Pink Sisters who are struggling. The struggle doesn’t end once treatment ends – it lasts a lifetime.
SO, this last Showstopper of Breast Cancer Awareness Month is dedicated to MY Pink Sisters. to my Pink Sisters – way too many to name without risking inadvertently leaving out so many women who have meant so much to me, and who continue to be such an important part of my life; and to my Pink Angels, Roxie, Judy, Laura …
“SISTER ACT,” the musical, opened its out-of-town engagement in Pasadena, California in 2006 – the same year that I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The new musical broke box office records for the Pasadena Playhouse, grossing over $1M during it’s 2-month run. The Sisters transferred to London’s West End for their ‘opening’ in 2009, then to Broadway in 2011. Patina Miller (non-Broadway people know her from “Madame President,” “All My Children,” and “The Hunger Games”) was brilliantly cast in the lead role for the original West End and original Broadway productions.
This song is performed as the ’11 o’clock number’ – the big ‘showstopper’ performed towards the end of the 2nd Act. It finds the lead character, Deloris Van Cartier, alone in a room, and frightened. It is the point of the show where she realizes that she can overcome her fear, overcome anything, by surrounding herself with her new “Sisters” – not biological sisters, but, rather, sisters who protect her out of love and chosen obligation. It is a powerful number.
“And as a sister and a friend, I’ll be a sister ‘til the end,
and no one on this earth can change that fact – I’m part of one terrific sister act.”
– Glenn Slater, “Sister Act, a divine musical”
