Plot: nun

The Nun Crashers is Lambda Players’ attempt to make a silk purse of a sow’s ear—or perhaps just get the most miles out of a habit—and for the most part, it succeeds. The troupe had originally planned to stage the Christmas version of the never-ending nuns-on-stage series, Nuncrackers, but difficulties ensued. Given a church basement set, six singing actors and some nun’s habits, David-Matthew Barnes (who co-directs with Peter Giovanni) wrote a show in which a pair of boy-crazy girls (Roya Bryant and Bethany Hidden-Cauley) follow a pair of boy-crazy boys (Joseph Ramos and Ben Clinton) to a parochial boy’s school. It’s got pop and holiday songs and a priest who prefers men of legal age (Mahlon Hall, who does a great soft-shoe as Father Berkenshire to “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”). Highlights include a very traditional duet on “Do You Hear What I Hear?” and (presumably unintentional) conflict of beliefs as three gay Catholic boys sing “(What if God Was) One of Us.”