Mamma Mia! (Touring)

A 1983 introduction and a 1999 opening

Mamma Mia! started with a meeting rather than a script. Producer Judy Craymer met Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus in 1983 and developed the idea of building a story around ABBA's catalogue; sixteen years separated that introduction from opening night. The show reached the stage at the Prince Edward Theatre in London on 6 April 1999, with a book by Catherine Johnson about a bride-to-be on a Greek island who invites three men her mother knew in 1979, direction by Phyllida Lloyd and choreography by Anthony Van Laast. Twenty-two ABBA songs were written into the plot, sung in character rather than performed as a concert set.

That architecture has barely been touched since. Mark Thompson's scenic design, Howard Harrison's lighting, sound by Andrew Bruce and Bobby Aitken, and musical supervision and arrangements by Martin Koch were still the credits on the Broadway programme in 2025 and on the touring programme in 2026. Where other jukebox musicals have been rebuilt or re-staged, Mamma Mia! has been maintained, cast by cast.

The run that made the ledger

The Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on 18 October 2001, a month after the attacks on New York, and stayed there until 19 October 2013 before transferring to the Broadhurst Theatre, where it closed on 12 September 2015. It played 5,773 performances in total, which makes it the ninth longest-running show in Broadway history.

London has gone further. By the time the West End production marked its twenty-seventh year in April 2026 it had played close to 11,000 performances to more than 11 million people, and ranks third among the longest-running musicals in West End history. The run at the Novello Theatre is now booking to 2 October 2027, and a new company takes over on 12 October 2026, with Sara Poyzer returning as Donna and Richard Standing as Sam, alongside Vivien Carter as Tanya, Laura Medforth as Rosie and Ellie Gilbert-Grey as Sophie.

The cumulative figures are the reason the title keeps generating new companies: around 70 million admissions across some 50 productions in 16 languages, in more than 60 countries, and roughly $4.5 billion in worldwide grosses since 1999. Two film adaptations followed the stage show rather than preceding it, which is unusual for a property of this reach.

Six months back at the Winter Garden

The most consequential recent development was a return to the theatre where the Broadway run began. The revival started previews at the Winter Garden on 2 August 2025, opened on 14 August 2025 and closed on 1 February 2026 as a limited engagement. Lloyd and Van Laast's staging came back intact, with Christine Sherrill as Donna, Amy Weaver as Sophie, Carly Sakolove as Rosie, Jalynn Steele as Tanya, Victor Wallace as Sam, Jim Newman as Bill, Rob Marnell as Harry and Grant Reynolds as Sky.

Critically, the reception split along familiar lines — reviewers who treated the piece as a well-drilled machine for delivering ABBA songs were satisfied, while those looking for dramatic substance were not. Commercially it was among the stronger tickets on Broadway for the duration of the engagement, which is what made the decision to stop at six months and put the company back in trucks a deliberate one rather than a retreat.

Three companies on the road at once

The North American 25th Anniversary Tour opened at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts on 2 November 2023, with Sherrill as Donna, Alisa Melendez as Sophie, Wallace as Sam, Newman as Bill, Marnell as Harry, Steele as Tanya and Sakolove as Rosie. It paused for the Broadway engagement and resumed on 5 March 2026 in Wilmington, North Carolina, with Jessica Crouch taking over as Donna, Juliette M. Ojeda as Sophie and Leland Burnett as Bill; Sakolove, Steele, Marnell and Wallace carried over.

That company spent 2026 on long sit-down weeks rather than one-nighters: the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles until 19 July, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa until 2 August, the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto until 30 August. The autumn route runs through Montreal, Hartford — six performances at The Bushnell from 20 to 25 October 2026, with tickets having gone on sale on 7 August — then Washington, Birmingham, Fort Worth, El Paso, Lincoln and Durham.

A separate UK and international company is running in parallel, and it is the older of the two: 20 years on the road, 42 countries, more than 4,000 performances and over 7.7 million admissions. A new cast joined on 13 August 2026 at the King's Theatre Glasgow, announced on 22 June 2026, with Jenn Griffin continuing as Donna and Ashleigh Jones as alternate Donna, Sarah Earnshaw as Tanya, and Lauren Woolf, Richard Taylor Woods, Simon Victor, Arvid Larsen, Hazel Baldwin and Samuel George Downey joining as Rosie, Sam, Bill, Harry, Sophie and Sky. "I'm excited to welcome some new cast members into the MAMMA MIA! UK Tour family and can't wait for them to join us," Craymer said at the announcement.

What the show is in 2026

The running time is about two and a half hours with one interval, and the shape has not moved in 27 years: twenty-two numbers across two acts, no support act, and a curtain-call sequence that functions as a short concert and gets most of the house standing. Van Laast's choreography, not the book, supplies the momentum — the Ottawa review on 1 August 2026 singled out the ensemble's "perfectly synchronized steps, lifts, and kicks", and the Toronto notice of 29 August 2026 credited the choreography with "much of its momentum" while calling the plot itself corny and comparing it to a Hallmark story.

Across three 2026 reviews, the same two performances draw the same response. Steele as Tanya and Sakolove as Rosie are repeatedly identified as the strongest things on stage; the Los Angeles review of 25 June 2026 called them the best versions of those parts its writer had seen across multiple viewings. Crouch's Donna is described as a powerhouse with a range that reviewers call slightly limited, and "The Winner Takes It All" is where the house noise spikes.

Technical consistency is the recurring complaint rather than the performances. The Los Angeles review reported the band drowning out the singers; Ottawa flagged uneven sound at the National Arts Centre as a recurring issue; Toronto's opening night had stagehands visible moving set pieces and some scenes left faces underlit. Reviewers also note the second act sagging before the wedding sequence pulls it back.

The 2027 route

Both touring companies are booked well past the end of 2026. The North American route runs through Cleveland, Sarasota, Fort Lauderdale, Knoxville, Columbia, Greensboro, St. Louis, Schenectady, Boston, Toledo, Des Moines, Denver, Albuquerque, Palm Desert, San Jose and San Diego, finishing in Honolulu from 6 to 18 July 2027.

Germany gets the English-language staging back in 2027 rather than a German-language adaptation, with original dialogue and songs played under German subtitles. The dates run from the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, 24 March to 4 April, through the Deutsches Theater in Munich (7 April to 2 May), Porsche Arena in Stuttgart (5 to 9 May), Leipzig (19 to 23 May), the Admiralspalast in Berlin (15 to 26 September), the Metronom Theater in Oberhausen (29 September to 17 October) and the Metropol Theater in Bremen (20 to 31 October). Presales opened on 22 and 23 April 2026.

Taken together — London booking to October 2027, a North American tour routed to Honolulu in July 2027, a UK and international company and a seven-city German leg — the production is running more simultaneous companies in 2027 than at most points in its history.