The dancing queens (and kings) of Mamma Mia! land in Boston with several new cast members, including Chicago addition Dee Hoty (Footloose, Will Rogers Follies) as the lead Donna. The infectious British musical composed entirely of ABBA tunes plays Beantown Aug. 17 Oct. 28 at the Colonial Theatre.

Hoty was three-times Tony-nominated for Footloose, Best Little Whorehose Goes Public and The Will Rogers Follies. Other credits include Broadway's City of Angels, Me & My Girl, Big River and The Five O'Clock Girl. Also in the Mamma Mia! cast are Michelle Aravena as Donna's daughter Sophie, Gary P. Lynch as Sam, Adam Brazier as Sky, Gabrielle Jones as Rosie and the Donna understudy, Mary Ellen Mahoney as Tanya, Lee MacDougall as Harry, Craig Bennett as Bill, Miku Graham as Lisa, Nicole Fraser as Ali, Adam Fleming as Eddie and Nicolas Dromard as Pepper.

Brazier is a Stratford Festival vet whose credits there include Romeo and Juliet, Camelot and Man of La Mancha. Lynch portrayed Javert on Broadway and has toured the U.S. as El Gallo in The Fantasticks. Jones, last at Toronto's Royal Alexandra in Les Miserables, has spent six seasons with the Shaw Festival and four with the Stratford festival. Mahoney starred in the Royal Alexandra's Crazy For You, also performing on the Royal Alex stage in The Heidi Chronicles and Singin’ and Dancin’ Tonight. She won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for her appearance in A Little Night Music and was nominated as the lead in Beckett's Happy Days. Playwright MacDougall won the 1996 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play for High Life and most recently appeared on the Royal Alexandra stage in Damn Yankees.

Tickets in Boston are $25-$75. The Colonial Theatre is located at 106 Boylston Street. For reservations, call (617) 931-2787. Mamma Mia! is on the web at http://www.mamma mia.com.

* 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.

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Mamma Mia! will open at Broadway's renovated Winter Garden Theatre Oct. 18, 2001, with previews beginning Oct. 5.

Toronto and former Mamma Mia! tour star Louise Pitre reprises her role as Donna for Broadway. Cabaret's Karen Mason will play one of her singing group cohorts, Tanya with Ragtime's Judy Kaye as her other best friend, Rosie. Tina Maddigan, who created the role of Sophie on both the tour and in Toronto, plays Sophie on Broadway.

For tickets in New York, call Telecharge at (212) 239-6262. Mamma Mia! is on the web at http://www.mamma mia.com.