Heavenly holiday hell in playful ‘Nuncrackers’

Secular and ecumenical delights decorate “Nuncrackers: The Nunsense Christmas Musical,” receiving its local premiere at the Fremont Centre Theatre in South Pasadena.

Dan Goggin’s 1998 holiday entry in his popular franchise attains heavenly levels of irreverent mirth, leavened by genuine sweetness.

A Publisher’s Clearing House windfall has funded a public access studio in the Mount Saint Helen’s Convent basement, where the eternally fund-raising Little Sisters of Hoboken prepare for their first television special. But these nuns are inundated with crises.

Sister Mary Paul, alias Amnesia (Leah Stanko-Mangum), oversees caroling students while confusing “wassail” with “waffle.” Brooklyn-born Sister Robert Anne (Rebecca George) is continually waylaid from performing by the Reverend Mother Mary Regina (Rende Rae Norman).

She, along with pragmatic Sister Mary Hubert (Haneefah Wood), struggles to maintain the order’s order. Meanwhile, visiting Father Virgil (Michael Edwin) reluctantly replaces missing Sister Julia, Child of God, in her cooking segment.

“Nunsense” veteran Mary-Pat Green’s deft, deliberately hokey staging supports Goggin’s real-time twists, as Gary Mattison’s musical direction and Karen Byers-Blackwell’s choreography buoy the gleefully generic songs.

The keen designs are deceptively makeshift, and the cast is delightful. Norman suggests a conflation of Faith Prince and Betty White, along with Stanko-Mangum, George and Wood revealing first-rate vocal and comic chops.

Edwin is hysterical, and the children are both adorable and toe-curling.

The most fun to be had with a nun outside of “Late Night Catechism,” “Nuncrackers” might just be habit-forming.

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‘Nuncrackers’

What: “Nuncrackers: The Nunsense Christmas Musical”

Where: Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave., South Pasadena

When: Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 3 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m.

Ends: Ends Dec. 22

Price: $18 to $22

Contact: (626) 441-5977

Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes