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

Tickled Pink

By Rebecca Jessup

Legally Blonde, the hit Broadway musical now playing at the Buell Theatre at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, is an exuberant, hilarious funfest. The story follows the film starring Reese Witherspoon in its broad outline, although not in all details.



A Malibu Barbie/Valley Girl named Elle Woods, supported by her stereotypically cute sorority sisters, is preparing for her imminent engagement to Warner Huntington III in the opening number, “Omigod You Guys!” Elle is devastated when her Ken-doll guy not only fails to propose but actually breaks up with her. It seems he has ambitious plans that don’t include a fashionista mall surfer, and he’s off to Harvard Law School.

Elle, who is nothing if not plucky, comes up with the brilliant solution: She’ll follow him to Harvard! She crams and gets in, in an absurdly improbable scene with the admissions committee. After sashaying into her first class in a giddy haze of pink, she gets her first-ever leash correction: She’s humiliated and kicked out of class by the villain of the piece, a Harvard law professor named Callahan, portrayed in all his oily glory by Ken Land, supported by super-WASP Vivienne (Megan Lewis), Warner’s new girlfriend. Elle comes close to failing, and is turned around by recent graduate and professor’s assistant Emmett (D.B. Bonds) in the song “Chip on My Shoulder” (“But with the chance you've been given / Why are you not driven as hell?”) By the end, Elle has grown from the bouncy “Omigod” teeny-bopper of the opening number to an older, wiser but still effervescent version of herself, and she transforms that OMG into a heartfelt “Oh, my God.”

Paulette the hairdresser, winningly played by Natalie Joy Johnson, is the new advisor and friend Elle meets at a beauty salon in Boston. Ven Daniel plays the UPS man, Kyle, who has a package for Paulette. Colleen Sexton plays Brooke Wyndham, the intimidatingly fit workout-industry diva who hires Callahan and his young assistants to defend her in a high-profile murder case. Elle is backed up regularly by her Delta Nu sorority sisters, who become a “Greek chorus” inside her head when she moves from Malibu to Harvard.

The Buell was packed even on a Tuesday night, with hardly an empty seat. The crowd was rewarded with two hours of airtight performances, wonderful dancing, music and lyrics, and an intelligent script that makes fun of, among other things, blondes who have more fun, New Age music, lawyers, seduction, and American provincialism (“Is he gay or European?”). The strong voices of the cast were backed up by a tiny but well-amplified pit band. The scenery changed often, swiftly, with seamless choreography and stage direction that made it all look easy and inevitable.

Becky Gulsvig, as Elle, pumps the part full of all the passion and emerging compassion, heart, guts and strength that make Elle an appealing character. Her singing is strong and true, although overshadowed slightly at the very end by Vivienne’s. There’s nary a weak line or a false note in the show. Even Elle’s chihuahua mix and Paulette’s bulldog turned in flawless performances—but this show is such a powerhouse that the dogs just can’t steal it.

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

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Legally Blonde the Musical, presented by Denver Center Attractions, runs through Feb. 14. For ticket information visit www.denvercenter.org or call 303-893-4100.
Director/choreographer, Jerry Mitchell; lyrics and music, Nell Benjamin and Laurence O’Keefe; book, CU-Boulder grad Heather Hach; music director/conductor, James Sampliner.

All Denver Center Attractions 2010 Shows Now On Sale

DENVER — For the first time, Denver Center Attractions will put all tickets on sale at once for its “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” season of Broadway hits headed for Denver next year. Just in time for the holidays, tickets went on sale Sunday, December 6 for all DCA shows in 2010, including:

Cats January 13–17
Legally Blonde February 2–14
Mary Poppins March 4–April 4
In the Heights April 28–May 9
Fiddler on the Roof May 18–23
Young Frankenstein June 15–27
South Pacific July 20–August 1
The 101 Dalmatians Musical August 31–September 12
Shrek November 16–28

For more information on these shows, please visit www.denvercenter.org

Subscription packages, including the 8-play series and a new 4-play Family Series, are now available. Single tickets for all 2010 Denver Center Attractions shows go on sale Sunday, December 6. 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, or at TicketsWest outlets, located in all King Soopers stores. Buy and print online at www.denvercenter.org

August: Osage County A Rare Theatrical Event

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, by Tracy Letts, is a grand, gripping new play that tells the story of the Westons, a large extended clan that comes together at their rural Oklahoma homestead when the alcoholic patriarch disappears. Forced to confront unspoken truths and astonishing secrets, the family must also contend with Violet (played by Academy Award-winner Estelle Parsons), a pill-popping, deeply unsettled woman at the center of this storm.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY is a rare theatrical event - a large-scale work filled with unforgettable characters, a powerful tale told with unflinching honesty.

Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY is written by Tracy Letts and directed by Anna D. Shapiro.

The New York Times cheers, "August: Osage County is flat-out, without qualification, the most exciting new American play Broadway has seen in years."

Denver Center Attractions launches the national tour of AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, running July 24 - August 8, at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. TICKETS ARE LIMITED.

For tickets, visit: www.denvercenter.org
Follow the Denver Center on Twitter @DenverCenter