Mamma Mia! at Second Generation Theatre
- Anthony Chase
- 19 hours ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 9 hours ago
By ANTHONY CHASE
On a Greek island, 20-year-old Sophie is about to marry but desperately wants her father to walk her down the aisle. Problem: she doesn't know who he is. After secretly reading her mother Donna's old diary, Sophie invites three possible candidates -- Sam, Bill, and Harry -- to the wedding without telling Donna. When all three men show up, chaos ensues as old flames are rekindled, secrets surface, and Donna must confront her past. Through ABBA's greatest hits, the story celebrates love, friendship, and the bonds between mothers and daughters, ultimately revealing that family isn't always defined by biology. That's the plot of Mamma Mia!
It's a premise that has launched a thousand bachelorette party theater outings, two feature films, and countless high school productions. But director Lisa Ludwig's production for Second Generation Theatre at Shea's 710 Main Theatre reminds us why this jukebox musical became a phenomenon in the first place, and why, twenty-seven years after its premiere, it requires a deft hand to make it work.
Ludwig, executive director of Shakespeare in Delaware Park and a longtime director of high school musicals, brings what might be the perfect pedigree for steering a musical to opening night in Buffalo's small professional theater environment with its short rehearsal and tech periods. A musical requires fortitude and a firm hand as the ultimate collaboration of artistic contributors: director, choreographer, designers, music director, all competing for rehearsal time and vision.
But there's an additional complication here. The cleverness of Mamma Mia! is now dated. When the show premiered in 1999, the joy of the concept was hearing very familiar pop songs ingeniously inserted into the plot in unexpected ways. Audiences laughed out loud to hear a totally familiar song like "Chiquitita," "Dancing Queen," or "Does Your Mother Know" arrive in an entirely unexpected but somehow perfect context, sometimes with tweaked lyrics, such as when "Chiquitita, tell me what's wrong; You're enchained by your own sorrow; In your eyes there is no hope for tomorrow" was punctuated with the new rhyme, "and the wedding is tomorrow."
Now, twenty-seven years later, audiences know these songs, not from radio's Top 40, but from this very musical, making their arrival at critical plot points no surprise at all. In 2026, the elaborate exposition seems clunky, and every musical moment is an anticipated inevitability.
For her production, Ludwig has leaned into the other secret mechanism that drives this show: nostalgia around an ABBA audience that was, in 1999, just becoming middle-aged. The show begins with twenty-year-old Sophie and her girlfriends taking delicious delight in Donna's diary from when she was their age, marveling at the quaint rituals of courtship from "the olden days." They sing "Honey Honey," which is kind of the 1974 equivalent of the 1950s Connie Francis hit "Stupid Cupid." Yes, they're young, they have all the know-it-all smugness of youth, but Donna and her best buds have yet to take the stage. When they do, the night becomes a lesson in the value of age, as songs of innocence yield and bow down to songs of experience, culminating in a succession of showstoppers for the older folks, late in Act II.
Buffalo continues to be blessed with an abundance of excellent dance talent, and choreographer Michael Deeb Weaver has a genius for melding this into movement that articulates tone, character, and period while advancing the plot. He fills the expanse of this stage on a set by Chris Cavanagh that could have been designed for ballet, a taverna constructed using traditional flats behind an expansive dance space. (When this show closes, someone should do Coppelia or Giselle on the same set).
Music director Allan Paglia leads a capable and appropriately spirited band that recreates that distinctive ABBA sound. The curtain speech heralds the use of all local talent; it might also mention that the production features live musicians, albeit musicians relegated to a remote space and heard only through electronic amplification. While this has worked very well for, say, the "Starring Buffalo" shows, on this occasion, a heavily electronic orchestration piped in from the next room gives the music a pre-recorded, removed-from-the-action quality. From where I was seated, I could only hear sound from the stage right speakers, expanding this divide even further. Still, the production is musically strong.
Costume designer Lindsay Salamone demonstrates great wit, particularly with the 1970s ABBA costumes. She also gets to tickle us with an abundance of character clothes and those iconic flippers on the boys.
It is an odd feeling seeing actors I knew as children stepping into middle-aged roles. Such is the case with Kelly Copps as Donna, whose own mother I saw on stage when she was younger than Miss Copps is now. The very name of this theater company, "Second Generation," is inspired by this succession of generations. Here is Copps in a musical about a daughter scrutinizing her mother's past in a way that obliges mother to do the same. And of course, when we are obliged to recall the days of our youth, we often respond and react with the same immaturity we had back then, a reality that Copps exploits to its fullest.
After a cumbersome exposition and a show that started out feeling too small for the space it was inhabiting, I fell in love the instant that Copps, wielding a knife as she squares off with Chris Avery as Sam Carmichael, launches into the title song with, "I've been cheated by you since I don't know when!" Good God, from that moment on, Mamma Mia! is musical theater heaven. Every song seems to land directly into the sweet spot of Copps' voice, culminating with her truly stirring rendition of "The Winner Takes It All" late in Act II. Paired with Avery as Sam Carmichael, after working things out (as we know they will) they provide the grown-up core of the production.
This brings us to “The Dynamos,” the best pals and backup singers of her youth, Tanya and Rosie.
Bethany Moore makes a happy return to Buffalo after a Broadway career, and she would be perfect as Tanya were it not for the fact that Miss Moore does not look like the survivor of three husbands and countless plastic surgeries. Knock-out gorgeous in that way that dancers maintain like no other humans, she could still play Cassie or Peggy Sawyer without anyone blinking an eye. No matter. When she kicks her leg skyward with the grace (and extension) of Gwen Verdon mid-"Does Your Mother Know," the audience doesn't care. We are in the hands of a virtuoso. Her comic moments are masterful, including when she's handing laughs to others. I guffawed out loud as she steered oversexed Rosie away from heartthrob Bill as the wedding is about to begin, glaring at the man with schoolmarm protectiveness.
Michele Marie Roberts as Rosie, often seen in heartbreaking leading lady roles (think Bridges of Madison County, Beyond the Rainbow), is also a shameless clown and provides an ample share of the laughs in this show as irreverent and so-over-it-all Rosie. Her tour de force is the late-hour 'Take a Chance on Me,' which still evokes the original production's laughs by remaining unexpected, as Roberts teases what's about to come with her tentative "If you change your mind…" after the object of her affection protests too much that he never wants to marry.
Philip Farugia brings a compelling goofy Crocodile Dundee quality to Bill Austin, all amiable bewilderment at finding himself in this particular mess. The pairing of Roberts and Farugia creates show-stealing moments throughout the evening. This subplot, amplified by their hilarious physicality and worthy of the Hines and Gladys subplot in The Pajama Game, is a highlight of the evening, and these two are perfection.
The men, often a trio of third wheels in productions of this show, prove to be just as satisfying as the women.
Bobby Cooke as Harry Bright is the odd man out, but that turns out to be -- spoiler alert --because Harry has a man of his own at home. This 1999 gay subplot is rendered with great charm as Ludwig and Cooke foreshadow this entirely unsurprising but enthusiastically embraced revelation with little touches like giving Cooke, still an accomplished and uncommonly graceful dancer, a little balletic flourish as he exits the stage. He imbues the character with endearing charm. In the style of the 1990s (and maybe still today), he is just too compassionate to be straight.
Chris Avery's Sam Carmichael provides the romantic anchor opposite Copps' Donna, and their chemistry is palpable from that knife-wielding confrontation forward. Sam is the most misunderstood of the three potential fathers, and from the start, the obviously inevitable love interest for Donna. It's a challenging role because grown-ups can't resort to buffoonery - Avery must play sincerity and wounded dignity in a musical that often tilts toward camp. He succeeds, grounding the production's emotional core with a performance that never winks at the audience.
And yes, of course, lest I forget, the success of this show is quite dependent upon the talents of some young people.
Julia Witt as Sophie sings brilliantly and stays out of her mother's way as the instigator of all the evening's drama. Framing the show with "I Have a Dream," this is a confident and appealing performance from an up-and-coming performer who will, no doubt, someday play one of the older women's roles. She lands several critical plot points powerfully and without irony, and her final exit is completely emotionally satisfying.
Ryan Butler as Sky is handsome and appealing in the generic juvenile/prince charming role, a character who is, intentionally, left undeveloped so he can provide a snag in the plot at a critical moment, which must be reconciled in private backstage. (Somehow, after an existential crisis, Sophie and Sky still end up in front of the preacher). He delivers. Well done Mr. Butler.
Thomas Evans as Pepper is certainly the tallest actor I have ever seen in the role. Height disparity turns out to be inessential to the comedy of "Does Your Mother Know," as Evans brings great wit to the moment while facilitating Bethany Moore's showcase of cougar domination.
Lizzie Arnold as Lisa and Kai Crumley as Ali provide strong backup to Witt's Sophie, and never miss an opportunity to fill the background spaces with conspiratorial energy.
David P. Eve as Eddie is adorable, never taking to the stage without his open shirt showcasing his God-given and gym-enhanced assets.
The ensemble -- Kristopher Bartolomeo, Kyra Vest, Gianna Militello, Aimee Walker, Jack Catena, Alexandra Grace Nowak, Christopher Victor, and Kendric Warrick-- is terrific, filling Weaver's choreography with energy, commitment, and skill.
Mamma Mia! may no longer surprise us with its song placements, but in Lisa Ludwig's hands, and with this cast, it reminds us why we fell in love with this lightweight confection in the first place.
This is a show about mothers and daughters, about the wisdom that comes with age, and about how the exuberance of youth must eventually make room for the hard-won knowledge of experience, all set against the nostalgic backdrop of ABBA’s music. When Kelly Copps stands center stage, surrounded by her Dynamos, belting "Dancing Queen" or wringing every drop of emotion from "The Winner Takes It All," more than hearing the next song from the jukebox, we're witnessing the power of women who have lived, loved, lost, and survived to tell the tale; and who have paved the way for the next generation to do the same.
Mamma Mia! runs through February 1, 2026 at Shea’s 710 Theatre.
Thursdays @ 7:30 pm
Fridays @ 7:30 pm
Saturdays @ 2:00pm and 8:00 pm
Sundays @ 2:00 pm