Mamma Mia!, the jukebox musical that started it all, has returned to the Ahmanson Theatre, its 25th-Anniversary Tour treating the Broadway mega-smash’s mega-multitude of fans to not only two dozen of ABBA’s Greatest Hits but a much-needed feel-good night or matinee of musical theater enchantment.

Mamma Mia! may have ended its Broadway run back in 2015 after a mind-boggling 5,773 performances, but it remains now and forever the world’s most popular “juke box musical,” that is to say one which takes a bunch of hit tunes and finds ways to string them together as if they had been written for the musical and not the other way around.

Using the 1968 Gina Lollobrigida comedy Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell as inspiration, book writer Catherine Johnson adroitly squeezes ABBA hit after hit into the tale of a young woman who invites a trio of strangers to her upcoming wedding in hopes of finding out which of her mother’s long-ago loves planted the seed which grew into twenty-year-old Sophie Sheridan.

Needless to say, Sam, Bill, and Harry’s arrival at the Greek taverna run by Mamma Donna causes a commotion, not just in the village, but in the innkeeper’s heart as well.

The Voice and Boston Conservatory alumna Juliette M. Ojeda makes her principal national tour debut as Sophie, who informs her two best friends (understudy Emma X. O’Laughlin as Lisa and Maddie Garbaty as Ali) that according to her mother’s twenty-one-year-old diary entries, three different men made her Mamma swoon one hot summer to the words and music of “Honey, Honey.”

Even bigger news is that all three—Sam (Victor Wallace), Harry (understudy Rob Hancock), and Bill (Leland Burnett)—are about to arrive at the tavern for Sophie’s wedding to Sky (understudy Jason Mulay).

Meanwhile, 40ish Donna (Jessica Crouch) has her own invitees arriving in the persons of larger-than-life Rosie (Carly Sakolove) and nipped-and-tucked Tanya (Jalynn Steele), her longtime best friends and former Donna And The Dynamos groupmates, though it isn’t until Donna comes face to face with the three men who might have fathered Sophie that memories come rushing back to the strains of the title tune.

ABBA males Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’s melodies are as catchy as ever and their lyrics as stilted as they were back in the ‘70s. (It’s hard to imagine Sondheim, Hammerstein, or Porter coming up with turns of phrases as awkward as “Got a feeling, you give me no choice, but it means a lot to me. So I wanna know what’s the name of the game?”)

Still, this is minor kvetching compared to those infectious ABBA hooks and the memories they bring back.

If you’re like me and you’ve seen multiple Mamma Mia!s with the same sets, costumes, direction, and choreography as the show’s First National Tour, what ends up distinguishing one from another are its performances, and Mamma Mia!’s 25th-anniversary tour cast is second to none.

Blonde bombshell Crouch gives Donna powerhouse acting chops to match her proven power pipes, Steele’s Tanya is as divalicious as Tanyas get, and Sakolov is a bubbly, brassy treat as Rosie.

  Fresh-out-of-college Mulay couldn’t be more appealing as Sky and Ojeda makes for the most magical of Sophies.

Wallace’s sexy, dynamic Sam and Burnett’s Texas charmer of a Bill couldn’t be better, and it’s a treat to see Hancock graduate from an all-American Sky in years past to 2026’s posh Brit Harry,

Dominic Young’s spicy Pepper not only heats up the sizzle where Tanya is concerned but defies gravity as well, and in their somewhat smaller roles, Steven Gagliano is delightfully goofy as Eddie and Garbati and O’Laughlin are bubbly delights as Sophie’s best gal pals.

Swings Julia Charkales, Nico DiPrimio, Andy Garcia, Faith Northcutt, and Ryan Sander joined ensemble members Alessandra Antonelli, Tony Clements, Kate Cummings, Jordan De Leon, David Holbert, Alex Lanning, Blake Price (Father Alexandrios), Sarah Santos, and Kristina Walz on Opening Night to execute Anthony Van Laast’s athletic choreography with high energy and flair in addition to providing considerable vocal backup both onstage and off, and like their Opening Night onstage counterparts, swings Sarah Agrusa, Lauren Soto, and George Vickers V are poised to step in at any performance as needed.

Original Mamma Mia! director Phillida Lloyd continues to receive directorial credit for Mamma Mia!’s 25th-Anniversary Tour as does Van Laast’s choreography, though it’s a quartet of associate and assistant directors/choreographers who keep their original vision fresh and alive all these years later, while music director Andrew David Sotomayor conducts and plays keyboard in the big-sounding, disco-tastic touring band.

Production designer Mark Thompson’s modular sets may not hold a candle to the ones Stephen Gifford designed for the musical’s SoCal regional premieres (particularly as scaled down to National Tour specifications) but Howard Harrison’s gorgeous saturated lighting mostly makes up for this deficiency and Thompson’s Techni-colorful costumes (range from ‘70s ABBA-style nostalgia to ‘90s Greek Isle-wear) couldn’t be more eye-catching.

Two-dozen years may have passed since Mamma Mia! first visited the Ahmanson back in 2002, but as this 25th-Anniversary Tour makes abundantly clear, the ABBA Musical hasn’t lost an iota of its crowd-pleasing heart and pizzazz in the decades since its Music Center debut.

Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N Grand Ave, Los Angeles. Through July 19. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 7:30. Fridays at 8:00. Saturdays at 2:00 and 8:00. Sundays at 1:00 and 7:00.
www.CenterTheatreGroup.org

–Steven Stanley
June 24, 2026
Photos: Joan Marcus

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

Tags: ABBA, Ahmanson Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles Theater Review