The senior in high school stands in a small conference room, auditioning to get into Carnegie Mellon University's musical theater program. She has just finished the gospel classic "Mama Will Provide," and Gary Kline, an associate professor of musical theater, seems impressed. Although Patina Miller isn't a trained singer, she honed her voice in the choir of her hometown church, where she started singing at the age of three.
Kline asks to hear a second song. Miller doeasn't have one—at least none she feels is audition ready. Kline, a gospel aficionado, suggests that she reach back into her childhood. Miller thinks for a minute, then belts out a tune she fell in love with when she was nine years old, after hearing Lauryn Hill sing in the movie "Sister Act 2." After listening to Miller's version of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow," Kline doeasn't need to hear anything else. Even though he can't tell her at the moment, she's in.
Eight years and a BFA in musical theater later, "Sister Act" has carried Miller (A'06) farther than just Pittsburgh. The native of Pageland, S.C.,—population 2,500—has spent the past year as leading lady Deloris Van Cartier in "Sister Act" on London's West End. The musical's producer—Whoopie Goldberg, the original Van Cartier in the "Sister Act" movies an Miller's childhood idol—sends her emails on a regular basis. Miller was even nominated for an Olivier award, London's version of the Tony.
She's not quite done with "Sister Act." It opens this spring in New York with Miller making her Broadway debut in the starring role.
-Nick Ducassi (A'10)
