A mother, a daughter, and three possible dads? On January 31st, Grande Prairie Live Theatre and Grande Prairie Regional College plan to raise the curtain on their production of Mamma Mia. Director Rory Tarant says it took a little bit of luck and a little bit of fate to get it here.
“The theatre manager was in constant contact with the company that we get all of our plays from and was always putting a bug in their ear, you know let us know when Mamma Mia’s available… It was just sort of on a whim, they were about to go with another show and they got an email at the last minute saying hey Mamma Mia was just released do you guys wanna do it?”
Tarant says they are one of the first amateur theatres across North America to put on the play. Between dancers and cast, 45 people have spent the last year learning the songs and the steps. He says the biggest challenge so far has been getting people to do both together.
“One of the challenges is moving from getting all the songs learned and then into choreography and when your dancing around the stage at a million miles a minute and having to sing at the same time, your vocals start to fail at the start. So it’s a matter of getting people trained to do both and do both well.”
Looking ahead to opening night, Tarant says this is the fastest selling show GPLT has ever put on. He’s hoping those who do come have a great time.
“The goal is to try and get people entertained, to have people up on their feet and just having a blast listening to some great music and seeing some fantastic performances.”
Mamma Mia runs from January 31st to February 16th at the Douglas J. Cardinal Performing Arts Centre at GPRC. Tickets can be found on GPLT’s website.