This is a show that is pure fun, something that we need in these times.  And, as a ‘Boomer’ myself, I found myself truly enjoying the music of ABBA, and the way that its songs so uniquely provide the thread that holds things together. 

Actually, in retrospect, while many might consider ABBA a musical version of cotton candy—sweet , fun but without much flavor—the group and Mamma Mia continue to maintain a huge international audience, and, according to an article we came across, it  even has been honored with its own museum.

But, even with the music, this production demands a special type of cast—one that really enjoys what it is doing and creates a chemistry of color, sound and a demanding pace that makes the transition from one number to another seamless  enough so as to make the characters just believable enough to really like them.

To understand what a daunting task this is consider what is placed upon them in the form of the basis of the ‘plot’:

A Greek Island where an unwed Mother has a hotel (apparently with little traffic), and who has dedicated her life to now-grown daughter who is going to be married. 

If that’s not enough, the daughter, Sophie, played by Rose Sezniak  with just the right balance of being enough of a child to do something behind her Mother’s back but also enough of a grown woman to be able to develop an intricate plot,  discovers the names of three former lovers of Mom, any of whom could be her Father. 

And, like any young woman, she wants her Father to give her away at her wedding, so guess what—she secretly invites each of them (unbeknownst to her Mother or any of the prospective ‘Dads’. 

A note here:  These guys have a challenging task in their performance because they must display just the right amount of rivalry, maturity and frankness as each discovers that they have been a lover for Mom.  And they pull it off wonderfully, with an added sense of comedy .

After all, one is an architect (Sam Carmichael, played by John Hemphill with the right degree of seriousness and intensity one might expect of an architect), another is Bill Austin played by Martin Kildare who provides us a delightful rip-off of the outdoors action characters that wrestle with alligators, eat ants in the wild, etc.

The third dad is Englishman Harry Bright played perfectly by St. Louis native Michael Aaron Lindner (click here to read our interview with this hometown star).  But, Harry has a secret that is revealed later in the show.  While he could be the Father, he admits that his time with Mom was only an experiment to see what it was like to be a heterosexual, and he is actually in a long-term relationship with his partner.  Both are Gay.

It’s bedlam after that, especially when  one mixes in Mom’s two  friends—a fun-loving single gal (Rosie, which is a role with ample scene-stealing opportunities for Kittra Wynn Coomer and a thrice-divorced, rather sexily sophisticated leggy blonde (Tanya,  played to a ‘T’ by Michelle Elizabeth Dawson) to make it three for three in the women-men lineup.