“Gleefully wacky and irreverent.”

–The New York Times

“Line by line, Mr. Rudnick may be the funniest writer for the stage in the United States today.”

–The New York Times

“Deeply funny musings and adventures elevate Paul Rudnick to the highest level of American comedy writing.”

–Steve Martin

“One of the funniest quip-meisters on the planet.”

–The New York Times

“Paul Rudnick is a champion of truth (and love and great wicked humor) whom we ignore at our peril.”

–David Sedaris

“Quips fall with the regularity of the autumn leaves.”

–Associated Press

May 8, 2014

Sisterhood

This is Sister Cristina, the young nun who’s rocketing to stardom on the Italian version of
The Voice. As a teenager, Cristina had enrolled in a drama school sponsored by nuns, but just
before she was about to sing for the Pope, she broke her ankle. Then Cristina felt the call
and became a nun, leaving Italy to work among the poor in Brazil. Then she returned to a
convent in Milan and entered a Christian singing competition, which led to her appearance
on The Voice. This video has been viewed over 41 million times, and Cristina is still on
the show.

I think my favorite things about this video are the closeups of Cristina’s sensible
shoes, the shots of the other nuns rocking out, and Cristina’s eyeglass frames.
All of the stories about Cristina tend to mention Sister Act, and Whoopi Goldberg
has praised Cristina on Twitter.

I originally wrote Sister Act for Bette Midler, and in one of the many drafts there
was a scene where Bette, in a habit, sang Try A Little Tenderness to a newlywed
couple, while trailing the microphone cord over her shoulder, Vegas-style. If you’d
like to know more about how Sister Act came to be, there’s an article spilling the
beans in my book I Shudder; this article originally appeared in The New Yorker.

Blognick