I viewed Cheshire Academy’s production of Mamma Mia in the black box theater on Wednesday, February 26th. The musical was directed by Ms. Guarino and starred Elena Parkerson as Donna, Audra Foti as Sophie, Olivia Williamson as Rosie, Jane Golden as Tanya, Jackson Rafferty as Sam, Tony Wang as Harry, Nate Biller as Bill and Trevor Hampson as Sky.
The story takes place at Donna’s hotel on a Greek island. Her daughter, 20-year-old Sophie sends letters in the mail prior to her wedding day. These letters are sent to the three men from Sophie’s mother’s past. She sends these letters in order to secretly invite them all to her wedding with the goal of finally learning which one is her real father so she can be walked down the aisle by him on her wedding day. As Donna is preparing for her daughter Sophie’s wedding with her old two friends, she realizes Sam, Harry, and Bill, three men from her past have all arrived at her hotel on the Greek Islands for her daughter’s wedding.
The director's note explained how the show hoped to be bright, colorful, and fun. After seeing Mamma Mia come to life it was clear that the show indeed had all of these qualities. One example of this was that the black box no longer had black walls but was transformed into appearing as we were on the Greek islands. There were tons of sparkles and bright colored costumes worn by the cast. A major theme that was shown in Sophie's storyline of Mama Mia was finding her identity. This is shown in the musical as Sophie is shown to believe that when she meets her dad everything will fall into place so she can discover what made her the person she is.
The most memorable moment to me as a viewer was when Tanya (Jane) and Pepper (Willjam) were performing “Does Your Mama Know”. This is one of my favorite songs/scenes in the movie because I think it is very comedic. It was a very fun experience for me to see kids from my school performing this scene. Another moment I really enjoyed was watching the boys (+ Kamden & Ruth) pop up in scuba diver outfits during the performance of “Lay All Your Love On Me”. I really enjoyed this performance because I thought it was really funny to see those costumes and it was also very comedic on stage.
The actor I think did the best was Elena. She made her character seem very believable and did a fantastic job singing when she had lost her voice all week. She was very believable to be Donna and portrayed her personality extremely well. The way she made her voice sound was to create the same tone we would imagine Donna speaking in.
Some of the things I learned about theater from watching this performance was how the black box can be transformed into an entirely different setting. I had not known about a black box until I arrived at Cheshire Academy. I think it is a very good type of stage for musicals because you are able to repaint the walls to any backdrop you need. It is a very adaptable type of stage.
Overall, I really enjoyed watching the production of Mamma Mia. I thought it was bright, colorful and extremely enjoyable for the entire audience as well as myself. I really enjoyed the musical because a lot of my friends participated in it so It was very fun to watch them all perform.
