Sister Act’s Sarah Bolt on Being a Bossypants, Bubbly Nun and Bride-to-Be

Age & hometown: 29, St. Louis, Missouri

Current Role: Feeling the spirit as ever-joyful young nun Sister Mary Patrick—and soon-to-be Broadway.com video blogger!—in Sister Act.

Everything's Under Control: It’s no surprise that Bolt, whose parents met doing a regional production of Godspell, was a theatrical child. As the six-year-old host of a homemade talk show called Starlights on Hollywood, Bolt sang the theme song, interviewed "stars" (her two younger sisters) and directed the videographer (her dad). “I was too bossy to play with anyone else,” she jokes of family-centric projects. All grown up at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Bolt was never called back for a musical, but no matter: She landed a European tour of Grease before graduation. Offered a regional production of that same show, she made a gutsy move. “I said I’d do it if they gave me my Equity card,” she recalls. “I don’t think I’d have the balls to do that now! But I had nothing to lose, and it totally worked.”

Hey Soul Sister: Union card in hand, Bolt soon booked Wicked on Broadway (“the flagship store!”) where she happily stayed for several years with no intention of leaving unless she nabbed a principal role in a new musical. “Like that was going to happen, right?” she says, but Sister Act came along, and she never looked back. “I love doing this show. My face hurts at the end of the week,” the born-and-raised Catholic says of playing ever-smiling nun Sister Mary Patrick. “She is a lot, but she’s not too over the top. If she was, I wouldn’t want to hang out with her, and I totally do.” After eight high-energy shows a week, however, Bolt is ready to unwind. “I’m tired!” she says. “Give me some travel channel, some Anthony Bourdain and a glass of wine and I’m happy.”

Young at Heart: Bolt is not just an armchair traveler: She and her fiancé Dave, a corporate lawyer 10 years her senior, are always on the go, often visiting spots in Holland and Belgium that Bolt discovered during her Grease tour. She and her husband-to-be are “complete and total opposites—he puts on a suit and I’m like, 'Hey, you’re a grownup!'" laughs Bolt, who says she feels 18 most of the time. “When I got this ring on my finger I felt like an adult,” she says. “Then I went to my job, put on a nun costume and thought, ‘Nope, still not.’” Plans are in the works for a St. Louis wedding and honeymoon in Dave’s hometown of Prague, but there is one engagement term she still can’t get behind. “Fiaaaaance” she exaggerates. “It’s just so weird to say it! What, we’re getting married and now we’re French?”