accessAtlanta

As early retirements go, Peter Schneider's has been a pretty active one.

Just a little past 50, the president of animation and chairman of the Walt Disney Studios had put his imprint on a chain of blockbusters that revived the art of animation and helped define the age of digital filmmaking. Perhaps you've heard of "The Little Mermaid," "The Lion King" and "Toy Story."

FRANK NIEMEIR/Staff (ENLARGE)
Peter Schneider, who guided "The Lion King" and a host of 1990s blockbusters to the big screen, is back in theater, where his career began. He's directing "Sister Act: The Musical" at the Alliance in a test run that could lead to Broadway.
FRANK NIEMEIR/Staff (ENLARGE)
Peter Schneider works with Dawnn Lewis, who's bringing to life Deloris Van Cartier's transformation into Sister Mary Clarence.
MOST POPULAR STORIES How and where to have a blast on the Fourth LA police plan for huge crowd at Jackson memorial Big. Bang. Boom! Atlanta's fireworks options sparkle Sandra Bullock movie takes over Atlanta private school
EMAIL THIS PRINT THIS MOST POPULAR
THEATER PREVIEW "Sister Act: The Musical" Opens Wednesday. Through Feb. 25. $35-$65. Alliance Theatre, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-5000; alliancetheatre.org. ABOUT PETER SCHNEIDER • Personal: 57. Lives in Los Angeles. Married with two daughters. • Theater career: As an off-Broadway director in the '70s, Schneider staged works at Playwrights Horizon and Circle Rep in New York. He later was managing director of Chicago's St. Nicholas Theatre. • Film career: Discovered by Hollywood in 1984, when he was associate director of Los Angeles' Olympic Arts Festival. As chairman of Walt Disney Studios in the '90s, he was responsible for creating and distributing more than 50 films, including "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," "Remember the Titans," "The Lion King," "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Princess Diaries." • Theater highlights: Founded Disney Theatricals with Thomas Schumacher. Produced "The Lion King and "Aida" on Broadway. Since leaving Disney in 2001, has focused on his own pet theater projects, including "Grand Hotel: The Musical" (Los Angeles, 2004) and, now, "Sister Act."

But somewhat exhausted by the corporate-ness of it all, Schneider left Disney six years ago to pursue his first love: theater. Still, that hasn't stopped the director from exploiting his Hollywood connections — or existing film properties.

Three years ago, he directed "Grand Hotel: The Musical" in Los Angeles. (Yes, "Grand Hotel," as in the art deco classic starring Greta Garbo.) Now he's moved on to "Sister Act: The Musical," opening Wednesday at the Alliance Theatre and adapted from the 1992 film starring Whoopi Goldberg as Deloris Van Cartier, a lounge singer who has to inhabit a nun's habit after witnessing a mob murder.

As the project's mastermind, this former major studio head has spent the past three years assembling a creative team that boasts composer Alan Menken ("Beauty and the Beast"); lyricist Glenn Slater (working on Broadway's "The Little Mermaid" with Menken); and librettists Bill and Cheri Steinkellner (who wrote a hefty chunk of "Cheers" episodes during the '80s and '90s). Playing the part of the irrepressible Deloris is singer and TV actress Dawnn Lewis ("A Different World," "Any Day Now").

But the talent doesn't negate the fact that writing a musical is a risky and difficult task, he says. Though the first version of "Sister Act" enjoyed a well-received, twice-extended engagement at Pasadena Playhouse last fall, Schneider and company are hastily tweaking the show for its second incarnation — adding "3 1/2 new songs" and trying to trim 15 minutes from the two-hour, 40-minute run time.

"Oscar Wilde once said a revival has to be twice as good as the original, because people remember the original twice as good as it was," jokes the man who created Disney Theatricals with Thomas Schumacher and later worked at the Alliance during development of "Aida."

The director says that Menken agreed to compose the piece on the condition that he get to do all new music. Though Marc Shaiman ("Hairspray") is credited with writing much of the film score, its gospel and pop songs actually were based on existing material. ("My Guy" became "My God," and so forth.)

The style that Menken came up with is disco, but Schneider was reluctant to create an authentic, '70s-looking design-scape. "When you think about the '70s, if you were alive for that period, you go, 'Oh, wow! It was fantastic!' " says the director, 57, who wears red sneakers and a matching red shirt to a morning coffee chat.

"But if you go back and look at the artwork and the clothing, it was ridiculous. It's not very interesting. So the idea was to take a piece of time and do it as how you remember it, as opposed to how it was."

Susan V. Booth, Alliance artistic director, says she is a giddy fan of the movie. "I get really happy in the middle of the night when I find there's a rerun," she says. She also was wowed by the quality of the creative team and shares an aesthetic with Sheldon Epps, the Pasadena artistic director who trusted Schneider so much he agreed to produce "Sister Act" before a single song was written. (As co-producers, the Alliance and Pasadena Playhouse are sharing the world premiere billing.)

Though Booth calls the musical a "story-driven high comedy," both she and Schneider say they admire its spiritual qualities, which are subtler than its singing nuns might suggest. "There is something going on in that story about the nature of faith that undercuts a really delightful comedy," Booth says.

"I'm not a very religious person," Schneider says. "But the idea that we all need faith in our lives, or the discovery of faith, is interesting subject matter to me." On the one hand, Deloris is "completely without faith." On the other, the Mother Superior (played by Elizabeth Ward Land) is having a spiritual crisis.

"The answer to her prayer is Deloris," Schneider says. "Along comes this free spirit, and they both find the middle ground."

During an interview, Schneider talks about being trapped in New York during the Sept. 11 attacks and how he and his wife had to take a bus home to Los Angeles. Paralyzed by fear, he decided it was time to get out of the moviemaking rat race.

With a cast of 22 and a $2 million budget (for both cities), "Sister Act" is comparable in size and scale, if not tone, to Broadway's "The Color Purple," developed at the Alliance in 2004. But despite his Broadway credentials, the producer of "The Lion King" and "Aida" won't say that New York is the ultimate prize. "The Lion King" movie, after all, made $1 billion in profits, so he's already had a taste of success.

"My goal is to make it," Schneider says. "That was my goal. Can I put it onstage and do it and produce it and amuse myself, in the best sense of the word 'amuse?' ... Whether it's Broadway, whether it's London, whether it's touring, yes, I would like to have a second life after this."

Alliance highlights

Over the years, the Alliance Theatre has produced a number of world premieres of national import. A brief look back:

• "So Long on Lonely Street" (1985) — Atlanta playwright Sandra Deer's Southern Gothic comedy made her an overnight sensation. Though the show wasn't a hit with Broadway critics a year later, it's still frequently produced.

• "The Last Night at Ballyhoo" (1996) — Commissioned to write a play for the Olympic Arts Festival, hometown boy Alfred Uhry ("Driving Miss Daisy") ended up winning the Tony Award for best new play for this study of the inner workings of Atlanta's Jewish community.

• "Aida" (1998) — Elton John and Disney picked the Alliance for the world premiere of this Broadway spectacle, which eventually won three Tony Awards.

• "The Color Purple" (2004) — Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Steven Spielberg's film gave high visibility to this Broadway-bound world premiere.

• "Sister Act" (2007) — The Alliance's latest endeavor is likely to get a life beyond this run — either on Broadway or elsewhere.