Act One
On a small Greek island, we meet Sophie as she sends off three envelopes in the mail ("Overture/Prologue"). She announces the names of the men they're addressed to - Sam Carmichael, Bill Austin, Harry Bright. Lisa and Ali, Sophie's friends, arrive and reveal that Sophie's wedding is tomorrow. Sophie confesses to them that she's invited her father to the wedding…or at least the three men who could possibly be her father. After going through her mother's diary from the year she got pregnant ("Honey, Honey"), Sophie has determined that Sam, Bill, and Harry are the candidates to walk her down the aisle.
Donna, Sophie's mother, greets her lifelong friends Tanya and Rosie, who have just showed up for the wedding. The trio used to perform as the group Donna and The Dynamos. Running the Taverna, an inn on the island, Donna laments constantly working ("Money, Money, Money").
Sam, Harry, and Bill arrive at the Taverna. Sophie greets them, shocked to see them all there. Spotting his old guitar, Harry begins to strum a tune and Sophie joins him ("Thank You For The Music"). Sophie admits to them that she was the one who sent the invitations. Sam is clearly distressed by this. Just as Sophie is about to take them to their rooms, Donna comes out and sees them all there. Once she sees Sam, she is overcome with mixed emotions ("Mamma Mia").
Rosie and Tanya try to console Donna ("Chiquitita"). Donna tells them that although she always told them that Sam was Sophie's father, she wasn't really sure. She also tells them that Sam and the two other men who might be the father are at the Taverna. Rosie and Tanya rouse Donna's spirits, telling her that the Donna who used to be the life of the party is still inside her ("Dancing Queen").
Sophie asks Sky, her fiancé, to promise her he will never leave her like her father left Donna. Sky promises his constant love to her ("Lay All Your Love On Me") before Eddie and other friends lead him off for his stag night.
At Sophie's "hen night" (bachelorette party), Donna, Tanya, and Rosie perform in their old costumes as Donna and The Dynamos ("Super Trouper"). Sam, Bill, and Harry show up, and Sophie lets them join the fun ("Gimme, Gimme, Gimme"). Sophie gets a moment alone with Sam, who asks her why she's invited him to the wedding. Sophie, unable to tell him the truth, dances with Harry and tells him she does not know who her dad is. Before he can respond, Harry is whisked away by dancers. Bill gets to dance with Sophie, who tells him that his great-aunt Sophia was the one who left Donna the money for the Taverna in her will. Once Bill learns how old Sophie is, he has an epiphany, but Sophie is taken away by the party dancers before either can say anything else.
Bill and Sophie have another moment alone. Bill tells Sophie to come clean to Donna about trying to find her father. Sophie tells him she's tired of secrecy ("The Name Of The Game"). She asks him to give her away at the wedding and to let it be a surprise for Donna. Bill agrees.
Sky and his stag party return and join Sophie's bachelorette festivities ("Voulez Vous"). Sam takes Sophie aside and declares that he will give her away, clearly convinced he's her father. Before Sophie can object, they are swept up in the dancing. Harry then takes Sophie aside and claims that he will be the one to give her away. Overwhelmed, Sophie breaks away from the dance in a state of shock.
Act Two
After the "Entr'acte" plays, the curtain comes up on Sophie having a nightmare about her anxiety over her three prospective fathers and wakes up in distress ("Under Attack").
Donna thinks Sophie is upset because she secretly wants to call the wedding off. Sophie fires back that she would never want to raise a child without a father figure and storms off. Donna is left alone, feeling hurt and full of regrets ("One of Us"). Sam approaches Donna, and they look back on how things used to be between them ("SOS").
Pepper, one of Sky's friends, approaches Tanya on the beach and tries to flirt with her. Tanya chides him and tells him off ("Does Your Mother Know?"). Sophie finds Sky and confesses to him about her plan to bring Sam, Bill, and Harry to the wedding. Sky accuses her of using their wedding as a ploy to find her father and walks off. Sophie tries to go after him, but Sam stops her. Sam explains to Sophie that he left Donna to get married and have kids, only to end up divorced and remorseful for settling down too young ("Knowing Me, Knowing You"). Sophie, convinced that her love for Sky is stronger, leaves him to find Sky.
Harry finds Donna and offers her a check to help pay for the wedding. They reminisce about their time together years ago ("Our Last Summer"). Sophie enters with her wedding dress and asks Donna to help her get ready. Donna gets her daughter in her wedding dress, seeing her little girl all grown up ("Slipping Through My Fingers"). Sophie asks Donna to be the one to give her away. After Sophie leaves, Sam comes in and tells Donna he should walk Sophie down the aisle. Donna refuses to hear it and tell him he's done enough to her ("The Winner Takes It All").
Bill comes to Rosie and tells her of his anxiety over marriage and children, having sworn a life of adventure. Seeing a kindred spirit, Rosie woos him ("Take A Chance On Me"). Bill is about to succumb when guests arrive for the wedding.
Donna walks Sophie down the aisle. As the ceremony is about to start, Donna announces that Sophie's father is present but doesn't know which man he is. Sam, Bill, and Harry are bewildered. Harry says he is overjoyed to be one of Sophie's three dads and admits to Donna that he is now in a committed relationship with a man back home. Sophie proposes to Sky that they not get married and instead go see the world. With a priest still present, Sam proposes to Donna, who accepts ("I Do, I Do, I Do"). There ends up being a wedding after all!
The show ends with Sky and Sophie leaving the island to go on a new adventure together ("I Have A Dream").
The company takes their bows along to some audience-rousing hits ("Mamma Mia", "Dancing Queen", "Waterloo").
Sophie Sheridan
Born and raised on the island.
Gender: female
Vocal range top: E5
Vocal range bottom: F#3
Donna Sheridan
Sophie's mother.
Gender: female
Vocal range top: A5
Vocal range bottom: E3
Sam Carmichael
Might be Sophie's father.
Gender: male
Vocal range top: Ab4
Vocal range bottom: D3
Bill Austin
Might be Sophie's father.
Gender: male
Vocal range top: F#4
Vocal range bottom: Bb2
Harry Bright
Might be Sophie's father.
Gender: male
Vocal range top: F#4
Vocal range bottom: C#3
Sky
Sophie's fiancé.
Gender: male
Vocal range top: D5
Vocal range bottom: Eb3
Tanya
Former Dynamo.
Gender: female
Vocal range top: E5
Vocal range bottom: E3
Rosie
Former Dynamo.
Gender: female
Vocal range top: D5
Vocal range bottom: E3
Lisa
Sophie's friend.
Gender: female
Vocal range top: Db5
Vocal range bottom: G3
Ali
Sophie's friend.
Gender: female
Vocal range top: D5
Vocal range bottom: G3
Pepper
Barman at Taverna
Gender: male
Vocal range top: F5
Vocal range bottom: A4
Eddie
Helps Sky with Water-Sports.
Gender: male
Chorus
Consists of the Islanders, who work at Donna's, Wedding-Guests.
Gender: any
Inspiration
Mamma Mia!, with a book by Catherine Johnson and music and lyrics from Benny Andersson and Bjrn Ulvaeus, is a musical based around the music from the band, ABBA, of which, Andersson and Ulvaeus were both members. Active between 1972 and 1982, the Swedish pop/dance group is one of the most popular international groups of all time, with hits that spanned the charts of Europe, North America and Australia.
The musical came to fruition under the idea of theatre producer, Judy Craymer. After seeing the 1983 musical, Chess, for which, Andersson and Ulvaeus also wrote the music, she asked to sit down with them and talk about future plans. When she heard their song "The Winner Takes It All," she realized the theatrical potential of the group's pop songs. Although the composers were initially not enthusiastic about the idea, they commissioned her to go forward with their work. Craymer then recruited playwright, Catherine Johnson, to write the book and took on Phyllida Lloyd as the director of the original London production.
Mamma Mia! premiered in the West End at the Prince Edward Theatre on April 6, 1999. It has been extremely successful and underwent two different location transfers (to the Prince of Wales Theatre in June 2004 and to the Novello Theatre in September 2012); it continues to play to full houses to this day. Toronto was the first city to produce the show after premiering in London, with a production that ran from May 22, 2000, to May 22, 2005.
The musical made its debut in the United States at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, California, on November 17, 2000. On February 26, 2001, the production moved to the Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles and then to the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago on May 13 of the same year. Mamma Mia! moved further east to open on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on October 18, 2001, and then transferred to the Broadhurst Theatre on November 2, 2013. It remained one of the most popular shows on the Great White Way throughout its almost fifteen-year run.
The first North American tour started in Providence, Rhode Island, in February 2002, and then premiered in Las Vegas at the Mandelay Bay in February 2003.
Mamma Mia! has been performed in more than 40 countries and across five continents, including: Belgium, Greece, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. The first non-English production started in Hamburg, Germany, on November 3, 2002. Many international tours have run over the past several years, but the current one started off in Dublin on September 9, 2004.
Cultural Influence
- Mamma Mia! has grossed $2 billion worldwide since premiering in 1999.
- Over 54 million people have seen the musical in 40 different countries.
- It is said that, on any given day, there are at least seven performances of the musical being performed around the world.
- At the time of this writing, the Broadway production was ranked the tenth-longest running musical in Broadway history.
- Mamma Mia! has brought a renaissance to ABBA's music. Following the London premiere in 1999, the album, ABBA Gold, topped charts in the United Kingdom for the second time in fifteen years.
- The London production of the musical was one of the first times that three women (producer, Judy Craymer; book writer, Catherine Johnson; and director, Phyllida Lloyd) collaborated as a creative team. Its immense commercial success has been significant to the image of female creators in musical theatre.
- In June 2005, the Las Vegas production played its 1000th performance, becoming the longest-running West End or Broadway musical to ever play in Vegas.
- Mamma Mia! has premiered in more cities faster than any musical in history.
- Mamma Mia! has been translated into fourteen languages, including: German, Japanese, Spanish, Danish, French, and Chinese.
- The show is the first major musical to play concurrently in three German cities, with productions in Hamburg, Stuttgart and Essen all running in 2007.
- The Chinese premiere at the Shanghai Grand Theatre on July 11, 2011, was the first time a contemporary Western musical was presented in Chinese in Shanghai.
- A film adaptation of Mamma Mia! was released in July 2008. Featuring much of the creative team from the original London production, it starred Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried and Pierce Brosnan.
"Mamma Mia! flies as tuneful as a lark and as smart as a cuckoo. It offers one of those nights when you sit back and let a nutty kind of joy just sweep over you.... The true hero is British playwright Catherine Johnson, who took all these songs and cobbled a cohesive book around them. Genius."
– The New York Post
"A triumph, passionate and sharp.... The beauty of Judy Craymer's original idea and the irresistibility of Johnson's book lie in the mutual enrichment between the characters and the Abba songs. Ulvaeus's eloquent lyricism can slide by unnoticed behind Benny Andersson's infectious musical arrangements, but Johnson simply read the songs' words in order to write their innate emotional dramas seamlessly into the narrative songs and story help each other."
– The Telegraph
"The show is pleasing as it passes and it certainly features a generous swath of songs that caught the world's fancy during the '70s and '80s."
– Theatermania
"The theatrical equivalent of comfort food."
– The New York Times
"A certified hit.... A giddy guilty pleasure."
– Variety
Inspiration
Mamma Mia!, with a book by Catherine Johnson and music and lyrics from Benny Andersson and Bjrn Ulvaeus, is a musical based around the music from the band, ABBA, of which, Andersson and Ulvaeus were both members. Active between 1972 and 1982, the Swedish pop/dance group is one of the most popular international groups of all time, with hits that spanned the charts of Europe, North America and Australia.
The musical came to fruition under the idea of theatre producer, Judy Craymer. After seeing the 1983 musical, Chess, for which, Andersson and Ulvaeus also wrote the music, she asked to sit down with them and talk about future plans. When she heard their song "The Winner Takes It All," she realized the theatrical potential of the group's pop songs. Although the composers were initially not enthusiastic about the idea, they commissioned her to go forward with their work. Craymer then recruited playwright, Catherine Johnson, to write the book and took on Phyllida Lloyd as the director of the original London production.
Mamma Mia! premiered in the West End at the Prince Edward Theatre on April 6, 1999. It has been extremely successful and underwent two different location transfers (to the Prince of Wales Theatre in June 2004 and to the Novello Theatre in September 2012); it continues to play to full houses to this day. Toronto was the first city to produce the show after premiering in London, with a production that ran from May 22, 2000, to May 22, 2005.
The musical made its debut in the United States at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, California, on November 17, 2000. On February 26, 2001, the production moved to the Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles and then to the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago on May 13 of the same year. Mamma Mia! moved further east to open on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on October 18, 2001, and then transferred to the Broadhurst Theatre on November 2, 2013. It remained one of the most popular shows on the Great White Way throughout its almost fifteen-year run.
The first North American tour started in Providence, Rhode Island, in February 2002, and then premiered in Las Vegas at the Mandelay Bay in February 2003.
Mamma Mia! has been performed in more than 40 countries and across five continents, including: Belgium, Greece, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. The first non-English production started in Hamburg, Germany, on November 3, 2002. Many international tours have run over the past several years, but the current one started off in Dublin on September 9, 2004.
Cultural Influence
- Mamma Mia! has grossed $2 billion worldwide since premiering in 1999.
- Over 54 million people have seen the musical in 40 different countries.
- It is said that, on any given day, there are at least seven performances of the musical being performed around the world.
- At the time of this writing, the Broadway production was ranked the tenth-longest running musical in Broadway history.
- Mamma Mia! has brought a renaissance to ABBA's music. Following the London premiere in 1999, the album, ABBA Gold, topped charts in the United Kingdom for the second time in fifteen years.
- The London production of the musical was one of the first times that three women (producer, Judy Craymer; book writer, Catherine Johnson; and director, Phyllida Lloyd) collaborated as a creative team. Its immense commercial success has been significant to the image of female creators in musical theatre.
- In June 2005, the Las Vegas production played its 1000th performance, becoming the longest-running West End or Broadway musical to ever play in Vegas.
- Mamma Mia! has premiered in more cities faster than any musical in history.
- Mamma Mia! has been translated into fourteen languages, including: German, Japanese, Spanish, Danish, French, and Chinese.
- The show is the first major musical to play concurrently in three German cities, with productions in Hamburg, Stuttgart and Essen all running in 2007.
- The Chinese premiere at the Shanghai Grand Theatre on July 11, 2011, was the first time a contemporary Western musical was presented in Chinese in Shanghai.
- A film adaptation of Mamma Mia! was released in July 2008. Featuring much of the creative team from the original London production, it starred Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried and Pierce Brosnan.
"Mamma Mia! flies as tuneful as a lark and as smart as a cuckoo. It offers one of those nights when you sit back and let a nutty kind of joy just sweep over you.... The true hero is British playwright Catherine Johnson, who took all these songs and cobbled a cohesive book around them. Genius."
– The New York Post
"A triumph, passionate and sharp.... The beauty of Judy Craymer's original idea and the irresistibility of Johnson's book lie in the mutual enrichment between the characters and the Abba songs. Ulvaeus's eloquent lyricism can slide by unnoticed behind Benny Andersson's infectious musical arrangements, but Johnson simply read the songs' words in order to write their innate emotional dramas seamlessly into the narrative songs and story help each other."
– The Telegraph
"The show is pleasing as it passes and it certainly features a generous swath of songs that caught the world's fancy during the '70s and '80s."
– Theatermania
"The theatrical equivalent of comfort food."
– The New York Times
"A certified hit.... A giddy guilty pleasure."
– Variety
Billing
Requirements
BJÖRN ULVAEUS
(22.5%)
BJÖRN ULVAEUS
(22.5%)
MIA!
-
No changes to the provided Authorized Logo (including color, layout or design) will be approved.
-
If desired, Licensees may design their own artwork to use in coordination with the Authorized Logo as long as that artwork is distinctly different from anything used for the First-Class productions or for the Film. For example, there can be no use of the original "Bride" artwork or bridal imagery in general, nor can the artwork include the name "ABBA" or the title of any ABBA songs either as part of the artwork or in a strapline directly attached.
Video Warning
The videotaping or other video or audio recording of this production is strictly prohibitedIncluded Materials
| Resource | Quantity |
|---|---|
| KEYBOARD SOUNDS REFERENCE-DIGITAL | 1 |
| KEYBOARD1 - CONDUCTOR SCORE | 1 |
| LIBRETTO/VOCAL BOOK | 30 |
| PIANO VOCAL SCORE | 1 |