#9: Mamma Mia! Female friendships and communal effervescence with Grey Garrett

Chasing Phantom

For this pre-Thanksgiving episode, we hurtle up the list of long-running productions to give everyone something to celebrate and lift our spirits. "Mamma Mia!" may be the longest-running jukebox musical ever to run on Broadway (so far) but it's story transcends that reductive label. As expertly elucidated by Grey Garrett, who won a Best Supporting Actress in a Musical award for her performance as Tanya, this is a show that foregrounds female life experience and friendship in a somewhat revolutionary way for a show created in 1999.

Drawing from the experience of playing Tanya twice, Grey highlights the cycles of life that the show touches on, relates her own experiences of "falling in friend" with cast members, and the vital enjoyment of communal effervescence that the show fosters. In the meantime, I uncross my grumpy old arms and, at least in this one case, learn to love a jukebox musical.

This may not be the only time we talk about "Mamma Mia!" but it's a lively start to the consideration of a show that has broken a crazy number of records and continues to bring joy to "Dancing Queens" across the world.

You'll definitely want to check out my website, ChasingPhantom.net, for links to ABBA-tastic videos associated with this show. As always, please reach out to me at [e-mail] if you have cries of complaint or cheers of praise, or anything in between. And go see Mamma Mia! on tour - check out the website for upcoming performances!