{"id":388,"date":"2025-12-18T11:06:56","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T11:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calypso.media.uoa.gr\/2025\/news12\/?p=388"},"modified":"2025-12-23T14:58:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T14:58:52","slug":"review-mamma-mia-on-broadway-appropriate-for-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calypso.media.uoa.gr\/2025\/news12\/?p=388","title":{"rendered":"Review: Mamma Mia on Broadway \u2013 Appropriate for Kids?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Okay, let\u2019s start with the question most families with young kids have. Is Mamma Mia appropriate for kids?<\/strong> Well\u2026..it depends.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

THE PLOT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s start with the plot, in case you\u2019re in the dark ages and haven\u2019t heard of it. A young woman (Sophie) is getting married and wants to figure out which of the three men her mom slept with (in a short time span), is her father. Therein lies the problem for kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WERE THERE KIDS THERE? WHAT DO THEY FIGURE OUT?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took my 10 year old daughter, and saw a fair number of kids of various ages (we were at a matinee). The very first scene made me squirm, because after Sophie mails off the letters to her three possible dads, her friends show up for her wedding. (There\u2019s supposed to be a three month gap between the mailing and the friends coming, but that WAS NOT apparent. I wondered how these guys would make it in time for a wedding, when they lived in the U.S. and she lived in Greece and it was snail mail. But that\u2019s beside the point).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sophie reads aloud her mother\u2019s diary from 1971 where her mom extolls the virtue of each man and describes their encounter, ending with \u201cdot dot dot.\u201d Fortunately I knew what that was, but my daughter did not. So there\u2019s some innuendo but nothing explicit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show did have a few other moments where there was some other sexual innuendo (and some revealing body gestures), but the most disturbing part was just the concept that one of these men was Sophie\u2019s dad, and she didn\u2019t know which one. My daughter and I had a few talks after the show, answering questions like, \u201cHow does someone have three dads?\u201d Uh, they don\u2019t. How to explain to her that the mom slept with three men and didn\u2019t know which one was the father? If you\u2019re of a traditional family mindset (married with kids, no sex before marriage, no living together), this may not be the show for you (or your kids). The mom doesn\u2019t marry the dad, and at the end (spoiler alert!) Sophie and her man don\u2019t get married, but just decide to travel together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your child is old enough to think about these things, be prepared for \u201cthe talk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WHAT WE LOVED<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall the show has a lot of energy, fabulous costumes, humor and great music. There are some very campy parts (the snorkelers dressed in purple, the mom and her posse) and it was high energy.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The highlight was listening to Sophie\u2019s mom Donna (Lisa Brescia) sing, along with her girlfriends Tanya (Judy McLane) and Rosie (Jennifer Perry). These women had strong, rich voices and could belt out the numbers. Plus they were hilarious, especially Tanya and Rosie, who got the lucky roles of hamming it up with physical humor during several of their songs. Highlights were Chiquitita and Dancing Queen, where they used everyday items as props, and kept us laughing the whole time. And then Rosie\u2019s number, Take a Chance on Me, where more than one of us had tears of laughter rolling down our faces.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Sophie\u2019s fianc\u00e9 Sky (Jordan Dean) could have won a Tony for best chest, if he kept his shirt off the whole show. Wow. I\u2019ll leave it at that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not the Sky we saw, but it gives a preview:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

WHAT I DIDN\u2019T LOVE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t love the first scene. Not because of the \u201cdot dot dot,\u201d but because it was boring and silly and too much of young women prancing and acting like they were five years old. I was seriously concerned for the rest of the show after this scene. Fortunately it improved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t love Sophie\u2019s (Liana Hunt) voice. It was good, not great. She was perfect in the role of a young woman who was excited for new adventures. Her youthful exuberance was evident, and she\u2019s a good dancer. But her voice didn\u2019t match up to the other women in the show, and her solos were mediocre. Didn\u2019t Lea Michelle just get booted from Glee?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t love the placement of the songs that Sophie sang with two of her three possible dads. They seemed more like love songs and not ones that should be sung with your potential father. It seemed weird (The Name of the Game and Knowing Me, Knowing You). I\u2019m sure there are good explanations as to why they\u2019re there \u2013 don\u2019t bother telling me, because it didn\u2019t work for me at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t love our usher, who got mad at me for moving two seats over after the lights went down, and made me move back. It\u2019s not like we were moving from the balcony to the orchestra section. We were moving from the 4th<\/sup> row to the top, to the same row, two seats over. Because the woman in front of me was so tall she blocked half my view. It\u2019s not like the balcony was full. Two seats!!! We moved back to those two seats after the usher left. So there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
not our cast<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

BOTTOM LINE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We loved the show, and appreciated the two songs thrown in after the bow. I\u2019d take my daughter again in retrospect, though maybe I\u2019d have a little talk with her BEFORE the show so she knew what to expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, let\u2019s start with the question most families with young kids have. Is Mamma Mia appropriate for kids? Well\u2026..it depends. THE PLOT Let\u2019s start with the plot, in case you\u2019re in the dark ages and haven\u2019t heard of it. A young woman (Sophie) is getting married and wants to figure out which of the three men her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-wide.php","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theater","entry"],"yoast_head":"\nReview: Mamma Mia on Broadway \u2013 Appropriate for Kids? -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/calypso.media.uoa.gr\/2025\/news12\/?p=388\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Review: Mamma Mia on Broadway \u2013 Appropriate for Kids? -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Okay, let\u2019s start with the question most families with young kids have. Is Mamma Mia appropriate for kids? Well\u2026..it depends. 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