Beyonce's got religion - showbiz style - and wants to star in a movie version of the stage musical Sister Act.
She slipped quietly into the London Palladium several days ago, during a break from her UK I Am Sasha Fierce tour, and took a pew to watch Patina Miller and Sheila Hancock rock to the Lord in the Sister Act musical.
Beyonce was taken by Alan Menken's gospel-to-R&B score and enjoyed Glenn Slater's clever lyrics (Glenn has also written the lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies), and has asked her representatives to persuade Disney to develop the show into a film vehicle for her.
If this comes to pass, she would take on, in musical form, the part Whoopi Goldberg created in the 1992 Sister Act film, although the stage version moves the action from the West Coast to Philadelphia.
Beyonce, 27, would play sexy lounge singer Deloris Van Cartier, on the run from gangsters and forced to disguise herself as a nun.
The Mother Superior part (Maggie Smith in the movie, Sheila Hancock in the musical) could go to Meryl Streep, who has form playing nuns, and can sing.
Beyonce is also considering recording one of the show's hit numbers, Take Me To Heaven.
If Beyonce's prayers are answered, it won't shoot until at least 2011, after Sister Act opens on Broadway in October 2010.
The producers, Stage Entertainment, wanted to take Sister Act to New York in the coming spring but it's not enough time to get the show right. Menken and Slater continue to fine-tune the production and tinker with the Sister Act cast album, which hits stores and iTunes on July 27.
There's also the little problem of who will direct it on Broadway. Peter Schneider, who directed the London show, was sidelined in the weeks running up to Sister Act's Palladium opening.
An associate director was brought over from Germany to work with actors, and associates of Schneider put the show together.
Schneider will still be involved but the likelihood is that a new director will be hired to give Sister Act some heavenly help on Broadway.
Meanwhile, the musical, dubbed 'red-hot family entertainment' by Ben Brantley, the New York Times drama critic during his annual summer sojourn in London, is playing to healthy, but not packed, houses at the 2,000-plus seat Palladium.
I'm surprised it's not yet the scorching hit it should be.
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