Mamma Mia! Walks down the aisle at the Buell Theatre Nov. 2-7

Tour cast includes Denver actor Christopher Sergeeff

Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’ MAMMA MIA!, the smash hit musical based on the songs of ABBA, returns to the Buell Theatre November 2-7 only. Single tickets went on sale Sunday, September 12 at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts website or by phone and walk-up Monday, September 13 at 10am.

Leading the cast of 30 in this national touring production is Kaye Tuckerman as “Donna Sheridan,” the independent single mother whose carefree past catches up with her on the eve of her daughter’s wedding. Bride-to-be “Sophie Sheridan” is played by Chloe Tucker; her fiancé “Sky” is played by Happy Mahaney.

Mary Callanan and Alison Ewing play Donna’s best friends and former back-up band, “Rosie” and “Tanya,” (respectively) who reunite with their best friend on the island for Sophie’s wedding. The three men from Donna’s past and Sophie’s possible dads are John Bisom (“Sam Carmichael”), John-Michael Zuerlein (“Bill Austin”), and Paul DeBoy (“Harry Bright”). Sophie’s & Sky’s best friends are played by Stephanie Barnum (“Ali”), Elena Marisa Flores (“Lisa”), Ethan LePhong (“Pepper”) and James Michael Lambert (“Eddie”).


MAMMA MIA!’s ensemble features Jeff Applegate, Amy Biedel, Julius Chase, Thomasina E. Gross, Sean Hayden, Carole Denise Jones, Alison Luff, Marlene Martinez, Mario Matthews, Brian Ray Norris, Merrill Peiffer, Christopher Sergeeff, Jennifer Swinderski and Travis Taber.

An independent, single mother who owns a small hotel on an idyllic Greek island, Donna is about to let go of Sophie, the spirited daughter she’s raised alone. For Sophie’s wedding, Donna has invited her two lifelong best girlfriends—practical and no-nonsense Rosie and wealthy, multi-divorcee Tanya - from her one-time backing band, Donna and the Dynamos. But Sophie has secretly invited three guests of her own.

On a quest to find the identity of her father to walk her down the aisle, she brings back three men from Donna’s past to the Mediterranean paradise they visited 20 years earlier. Over 24 chaotic, magical hours, new love will bloom and old romances will be rekindled on this lush island full of possibilities.

Inspired by the storytelling magic of ABBA’s songs from “Dancing Queen” and “S.O.S.” to “Money, Money, Money” and “Take a Chance on Me,” MAMMA MIA! is a celebration of mothers and daughters, old friends and new family found.

Seen by over 42 million people around the world, MAMMA MIA!, is celebrating over 3,650 performances in its ninth smash hit year on Broadway at The Winter Garden Theatre and remains one of Broadway’s top selling musicals. The original West End production of MAMMA MIA! is celebrating 10 years and over 4,000 performances in London, an international tour has visited more than 50 foreign cities, and the blockbuster feature film adaptation is the most successful movie musical of all time grossing over $600 million worldwide. With a worldwide gross of over $2 billion, the global smash hit musical is acclaimed by the Associated Press as “quite simply, a phenomenon.”


Produced by Judy Craymer, Richard East and Björn Ulvaeus for Littlestar in association with Universal, the creative team responsible for bringing MAMMA MIA! to theatrical life includes some of the most gifted and celebrated talents of musical theatre and opera. With music and lyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, MAMMA MIA! is written by Catherine Johnson and directed by Phyllida Lloyd. MAMMA MIA! has choreography by Anthony Van Laast, production design by Mark Thompson, lighting design by Howard Harrison, sound design by Andrew Bruce and Bobby Aitken, and musical supervision, additional material and arrangements by Martin Koch.

Single tickets for MAMMA MIA! start at just $25. To charge by phone, call Denver Center Ticket Services at 303.893.4100. TTY (for Deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons): 303.893.9582. Groups of 15 or more, please call 303.446.4829. Tickets may also be purchased at the Denver Center Ticket Office, located at the Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex Lobby. Buy and print online at www.denvercenter.org.

MAMMA MIA! is an added attraction in the Denver Center Attractions 2010 season, and is sponsored in Denver by The Four Seasons. The 2010 DCA season is generously supported by United Airlines and Vectra Bank. Media sponsorship for DCA is provided by The Denver Post, CBS4 and Denver Magazine. The Denver Center for the Performing Arts is supported in part by the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District.

For information about MAMMA MIA! around the world, please visit the Mamma Mia! website.

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PERFORMANCE DATES

November 2-7

Tuesday– Saturday, 8pm
Saturday & Sunday, 2pm
Sunday, 7:30pm

Muddled Magic - Mary Poppins: The Musical

Mary Poppins
Based on stories by P.L. Travers & the 1964 Walt Disney film; co-created by Cameron Mackintosh. Music & lyrics by Richard and Robert Shermans, plus new songs by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe; book by Julian Fellowes.Directed by Richard Eyre
Choreography by Matthew Bourne
At the Buell Theatre, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, through April 4

By Rebecca Jessup
Mary Poppins, as everyone knows, is a nanny with mysterious powers. In the very early 20th century, she appears in the Banks family home at 17 Cherry Tree Lane, London, where Mr. Banks (Laird Mackintosh) is a regimented banker with no time for family life. His wife (Blythe Wilson) is overwhelmed and largely ignored. The two children, Jane (Katie Balen/Bailey Grey) and Michael (Bryce Baldwin/Carter Thomas), are so wildly undisciplined that they’ve driven away a string of nannies. The household is run by the shrill housekeeper, Mrs. Brill (the memorable Rachel Izen), impeded by the inept handyman Robertson Ay (Dennis Moench).
Most audience members will fondly remember the Disney movie; fewer are familiar with the original books by P.L. Travers. For those of us who first knew Mary Poppins from the books, the Disney version was saccharine, missing the original texture. The stage musical promised an effort to regain some of the depth and substance of the books. This worthy goal fails because it is undertaken not radically, in the structure of the story, but superficially, by adding darker, unhappier fragments based on characters and events from the books. The result is an implausible mix of giddy fun and fearful threats, with a happy ending.

When Mary Poppins (Caroline Sheen) enters the children’s lives, she introduces them to magic, music, fantasy, dancing statues in the park. Their lives are suddenly a great deal more fun, so they love her and and behave. But there is no coherent theme, no central conflict, no deeper understanding achieved; the villainous Miss Andrews, a character who descends on the family in the second act, is driven away (oh, thank heavens!) sheerly by the magic of Mary Poppins. At one point, Mary abruptly leaves the household, and in the next act she returns. She moralizes that there are things the family must do on their own, but it is far from clear what these things are, whether they are achieved or by whom, or why Mary comes back when she does.

The production is quite extraordinary, and the sets, cast, dances and costumes are well worth seeing. Children over 6 will love it. The three-story Banks house is a wonder of design and construction, as is the London skyline where the large production number “Chim Chim Cher-ee” takes place. Most of the favorite Disney songs ring out, along with a few new ones written for the stage. Bert (Gavin Lee), the chimneysweep narrator, is as affable and limber as Dick Van Dyke, and performs one of the show’s two thrilling stage tricks by marching up the side of the proscenium arch, tap-dancing across the top (hanging upside down) and marching down the other side. Sheen, playing Mary, performs the other when she sails across the theater over the heads of the audience. She turns in a talented performance, winning and tuneful—but she can’t make up for the inherent ambiguity in her role as written. The strongest voice and character belong to Miss Andrew (Ellen Harvey), the terrifying nanny from Mr. Banks’s childhood. She has a powerful, operatic voice that she uses with great skill to evoke menace and malice. The other menace arises from Jane and Michael’s toys, which come to life to express their outrage at the careless way the children treat them.

In the end, Mr. Banks becomes a better husband and father, the family is happy, and all seem set to make their way without further magical intervention. If there were a lesson to take away, it could only be that having someone with occult powers sweep into your life will make everything all right. Or that an extremely expensive production (hardly) covers up a muddled story line.

Rebecca Jessup (jessupr@comcast.net) is a freelance writer and Latin teacher.