Donna and the Dynamos are arriving on Broadway Oct. 5, and they are Toronto star Louise Pitre (Donna), actress and cabaret singer Karen Mason (Tanya) and Ragtime's Judy Kaye (Rosie). The trio form the middle aged center of Mamma Mia! the ABBA tuner, opening at the Winter Garden Theatre Oct. 18.
Kaye most recently portrayed Emma Goldman in the workshop of Ragtime as well as in the L.A. company, winning an L.A. Ovation Award. Carlotta in The Phantom of the Opera netted her a Tony Award in 1988. Other credits include On the 20th Century (Lily Garlard), Sweeney Todd (Mrs. Lovett), Shirley Valentine and La Boheme (Musetta).
Mason last starred on Broadway as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Other credits include Jerome Robbins' Broadway, Play Me a Country Song, And the World Goes Round and Torch Song Trilogy. A frequent cabaret performer, she has recorded the discs "Better Days," "Not So Simply Broadway" and "Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!."
A three-time Dora Mavor Moore Award winner for both Piaf and Blood Brothers and in 2001 for Mamma Mia!, Pitre's 20 years of credits include musical theatre stints with Les Miserables, Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd and Cabaret.
Tina Maddigan will play Donna's daughter, Sophie. Cast in the Toronto production and the pre-Broadway tour, Sophie is Maddigan's first major role. She graduated in 1998 as a Musical Theatre major at Sheridan College. The Toronto Star reported earlier that Canadian actor David Keeley will play Sam in the Broadway cast. Keeley is currently playing that role, one of the possible fathers of Donna's young daughter, in Toronto. A six season Stratford vet, he turned down playing Sam in the original North American company of Mamma Mia!, instead performing Horatio and other roles at the respected summer festival in Stratford, Ontario.
For tickets , call Telecharge at (212) 239-6262. Mamma Mia! is on the web at http://www.mamma mia.com.
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Mamma Mia! collects a couple dozen hit songs by the Swedish supergroup ABBA and shapes them around the story of a single mother and her young daughter's marriage on a Greek isle. While the daughter plans her future with the love of her life, she and her mother are haunted by three different men who may or may not be her daughter's father.
Among the songs used in Mamma Mia! are such familiar 70s staples as "Dancing Queen," "Knowing Me, Knowing You," "S.O.S.," "Take a Chance on Me" and "The Winner Takes It All."
Andersson and Ulvaeus, the songwriting half of ABBA, previously wrote the musical Chess, which enjoyed an extended run at the Prince Edward in the 1980s in a production directed by Trevor Nunn, currently artistic director of the National Theatre.
Mamma Mia! is directed by Phyllida Lloyd and choreographed by Anthony Van Laast. It is designed by Mark Thompson, with lighting design by Howard Harrison, sound design by Andrew Bruce and musical supervision by Martin Koch.
