EXCLUSIVE: Judy Craymer is the (dancing) queen, ruler of all issues associated to the Mamma Mia! stage musical and its film iterations. Her default place is to stay tight-lipped a couple of third movie, however tantalizing snippets emerge over lunch in Mayfair, London. There’s point out, for example, of worldwide phenomenon Sabrina Carpenter being searched for a task within the subsequent image.
There’s additionally speak of a potential TV model of Mamma Mia! too, however that’s method down the Greek beachfront.
Then, as we already know, Mamma Mia! returns to Broadway for a restricted engagement on the Winter Backyard Theatre with performances from August 2 and a gala official opening evening on August 14.
The Winter Backyard, positioned very properly on Broadway between fiftieth and 51st streets, is prime actual property.
Craymer coos that that Mamma Mia! follows “attractive” George Clooney and the play Good Evening, and Good Luck into that tackle. I jest that, maybe Clooney may need to cling round and play one of many male leads.
What a riot that may trigger.
However Mamma Mia! on stage, not less than, by no means has relied on above-the-title names aside from these of ABBA’s Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.
Craymer’s title needs to be high of the invoice too. I imply, Cameron Waterproof coat places his title in lights all over the place.
It’s Craymer’s drive and willpower that has stored the Mamma Mia! universe alive and kicking ever because it launched at London’s Prince Edward Theatre on March 23,1999. On the time, naysayers had a area day proclaiming the present could be off by June of that yr, if not earlier than. After transferring from the Prince Edward to the Prince of Wales, it now occupies one other prime spot, the Novello Theatre on the Aldwych. All three venues are owned by Delfont Waterproof coat Theatres.
I usually discover myself strolling previous the Novello as its viewers is spilling out, trying as in the event that they’ve had a bloody good evening out. The sight of them all the time kind of jollies me alongside to the tube station, particularly if I’ve needed to sit by means of one thing grim elsewhere.
Mamma Mia! had an preliminary practically 15-year run in New York, closing in September 2015. “Ninth-longest-running present — not that I do know that off by coronary heart,” says Craymer playfully.
Then, as now, she says it provides the town a “consolation blanket.”
It’s an apt phrase. On September 11, 2001, Craymer, director Phyllida Lloyd, choreographer Anthony Van Laast and the forged have been placing all of it collectively when the devastating 9/11 assaults occurred.
Judy Craymer backstage with Bjorn Ulvaeus (left) and Benny Andersson (proper). (Picture by Yui Mok/PA Photographs through Getty Photographs)
Rudy Giuliani was mayor then, says Craymer, “and he was very eager that Broadway stored going, which was form of good as a result of everybody did. However we have been truly placing on a present. We have been in rehearsals in September, we began previewing in early October, and we opened on October the 18th. So it was that feeling that everybody’s like, ‘Why are we doing a romantic comedy musical and all this horror is going on?’ After which Phyllida and I and everyone have been like: ‘That is what we do. So now we have to do it. If we don’t do it rather a lot, folks lose their jobs.’”
Craymer provides: “We felt we needs to be making sandwiches for hearth crews or giving blood, all these issues. However in fact, you couldn’t try this. You weren’t allowed to do it. You weren’t allowed down there. So we simply did what we did.”
I keep in mind being in NYC as quickly as we have been allowed to journey after that darkish day. And I’ll always remember the sensation that Mamma Mia! was in the fitting place on the proper time. It helped cheer the town up after that atrocity.
Tina Maddigan and Joe Machota in ‘Mamma Mia!’ on Broadway in 2001
Joan Marcus
“It’s a consolation blanket, “ Craymer reiterates. “I imply, it’s managed to transcend some troublesome instances globally, actually. Recessions, financial grind, terrorism. I feel that’s clearly sadly the panorama of the world, and Mamma Mia! has been there.”
She goes on to say, “What I feel it does is that Mamma Mia! is a certainty in unsure instances … and what reveals like Mamma Mia! all the time do is create a nostalgia and a reminiscence, and also you need to return with your pals. The storytelling works globally in that sense.”
Mamma Mia! toured forward of opening on Broadway 24 years in the past, and did two additional nationwide excursions that yr, so there has, as Craymer says, “all the time been a whole lot of love” for the manufacturing throughout the U.S.
The present’s success is, in fact, right down to the songs, however my sturdy perception is that it’s additionally as a result of it’s underpinned by a strong construction within the type of an inviting e-book by Catherine Johnson that Craymer labored on with director Lloyd.
Craymer agrees. “It’s sustained that point and stayed related and the characters, the construction,” she says. “And it truly isn’t a typical Broadway present; it’s not all in regards to the set, which may be very refined, nevertheless it does transport you to that Greek island — that’s what Mark Thompson created. He wished it to be with the white stonework, the blue sea, jetties, that feeling of a stunning Greek island accessible to all, not in a luxurious resort.
“You weren’t immediately in White Lotus,” she asserts, “you have been actually in sandals on a seashore simply having a easy idyllic time. Nevertheless it wasn’t a typical massive, shiny, shiny set. And the identical, with Phyllida’s course, the subtlety of bringing the form of Shakespearean themes out, which individuals would say, ‘Judy, don’t be so pretentious.’ These themes relate to folks, of fogeys, moms, daughters, hope, identification — all these issues that feed into it. At first they have been there, however I feel they’ve turn out to be extra one thing to carry onto by the viewers.
“And one thing actually fascinating as we’re on this,” she continues, “is that it’s actually captured the Gen Z viewers and has given Mamma Mia! a whole lot of momentum and that got here from the flicks after which into the present and into the audiences we’re getting in America and in London and around the globe.”
Entrance, from left: Christine Baranski, Meryl Streep and Julie Walters in ‘Mamma Mia! (2008. Common/Everett Assortment)
The manufacturing, Craymer argues, has turn out to be a “cultural engine.” It’s honest to say that again in 1999, ABBA have been form of uncool, “however then we hit a form of zeitgeist, and now ABBA’s a phenomenon.” The TikTok tribe adores the present, they lap it up. “TikTok loves the love romance, mother-daughter factor. After we began growing it practically 30 years in the past, none of that existed.”
Craymer, moderately magnanimously, permits that Mamma Mia! sits comfortably with ABBA Voyage, which is an enormous technical digital gentle present with avatars of Ulvaeus, Andersson Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Reuss of their heyday performing in a purpose-built 3,000 seat ABBA Enviornment within the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, East London. It’s fairly soulless, daft as a brush, however most people rock to it.
Ulvaeus is behind it and is keen to discover a house for it in NYC.
I don’t assume ABBA could be anyplace close to as standard now had it not been for Mamma Mia! which got here from an authentic thought by Craymer.
To start with, Craymer notes, “We didn’t have huge promoting spend or something. However after the primary previews [in London], the phrase of mouth propelled it. And I feel phrase of mouth — nonetheless cool promoting is now, nonetheless cool digital is — you may’t fault phrase of mouth. In fact, now phrase of mouth is social media, actually.”
The factor about travelling on public transport, for me, not less than, is that one picks up on what folks chatter about as they make their method residence after a present. Eavesdropping on conversations, I’ve lately heard folks, primarily ladies, planning for hen events to see the present on Broadway. They’ve already seen it in London, they know the flicks, and the subsequent step is New York.
Smiling, Craymer observes that “folks want that. Like folks want occasion films, you want occasion theater the place persons are in a position to share the expertise” and have a reminiscence of it.
“And I’m not a technical digital individual. I don’t even do TikTok, however I do know from the demographics that reminiscences and nostalgia feeds into all of these into Instagram, TikTok and every part. The story arc of Mamma Mia! consists of everyone,” she says, noting that it’s the identical with the flicks.
“All the boys need to be Pierce [Brosnan], Colin [Firth] or Stellan [Skarsgård],” she laughs.
The Sabrina Carpenter technology “and Dua Lipa’s after which even Pink’s technology are all influenced by the [ABBA] songs,” Craymer states.
Sabrina Carpenter on the 2025 Grammy Awards
Aha, the door’s opened for me to ask about Sabrina Carpenter and the third Mamma Mia! film.
Who would Sabrina play? I ponder.
Craymer demurs, however after I push, she says: “She’d be a goddess or some relation who would look very very similar to Meryl Streep.”
She gained’t entertain additional dialogue about Carpenter, however the singer’s additionally pleasant with Amanda Seyfried, plus she usually covers ABBA numbers throughout her concert events, so she appears a pure match for the subsequent film.
“It’ll occur when it occurs,” she says firmly.
Craymer means that it’s the storyline that excites folks .
“It’s not about sequels or redoing stuff. It’s about folks participating with characters, whether or not it’s turn out to be a behavior or streaming or favourite movies. It’s like listening to music over and over. Like studying a e-book. You may learn it twice. Folks learn Dickens many instances. No, IP continues on, and the film is essential for me creatively greater than something. But additionally as a result of I feel the world wants one other enjoyable expertise. Cinema is having a tricky time. [It] wouldn’t be an enormous costly Marvel film, however folks would go.”
Take a look at the current Bridget Jones: Mad In regards to the Boy film, which “simply did extremely effectively,” she says admiringly.
The third Mamma Mia! movie is on monitor and is effectively into improvement. “Nicely, we all know what we need to do with the film, and it’ll occur. And I imply, we introduced collectively this wonderful group of film stars that have been all related by means of it and large friendships advanced.”
She praises Lloyd, who directed the primary movie, who as a prolific theatre director “created a kind of theatre repertory firm [of the film’s core cast]. Everybody’s all in. So there was no form of, ‘Oh no, we’ve acquired to show up for the dance rehearsals, singing rehearsals.’ And that’s how they felt. I imply, it’s only a as if you happen to’re a gaggle of rep actors all on tour.”
Would Meryl Streep’s character Donna in some way make a reappearance? Craymer nods affirmatively.
“Yeah, she mentioned our after-shooting dinners have been legendary,” she giggles.
There’s a script “however I’m not going there,” Craymer says, disabling any try by me to attract out extra.
Musical romantic comedies are powerful to get proper. When you don’t mildew them with nice care then they don’t work, I say.
Craymer doesn’t swat that one away “They’re the toughest to place collectively. It’s like — soufflé is the improper analogy. Nevertheless it you haven’t acquired the fitting elements … then they don’t work.”
That top-flight forged of Streep, Julie Walters, Christine Baranski, Seyfried, Dominic Cooper and the “boys” Brosnan, Firth and Skarsgård, she says, “introduced a magic of elements to it. After which after we did the second movie and joined by Lily James and the youthful forged, they grew to become a part of that household too.”
Meryl Streep in ‘Mamma Mia! Right here We Go Once more’ (2018, Common /Courtesy Everett Assortment)
Common Studios /Courtesy Everett Assortment
There’s a sense, Craymer suggests, “that everyone needs to affix in and whether or not that embraces new characters, new forged … and that’s within the films, however the identical within the reveals. We’ve all the time had implausible casts they usually’ve all the time cherished doing the stage present, cherished doing what they do. And I feel going again to Broadway, we’ll hopefully have some implausible alumni moments with bringing forged again within the present.”
Mamma Mia! will do a six-month run on Broadway, although it all the time might return at a later date, Craymer says.
This Mamma’s had one helluva journey over time and has, as Craymer places it, turn out to be “an unbelievable IP with ABBA” that you simply by no means got down to create. “And I feel if you happen to do attempt, it doesn’t work.”
She concedes that at the present time “when folks need content material, there’s the flicks, the stage present, there’s different productions of the stage present, and ultimately there’ll most likely be a TV collection or one thing.”
My eyes pop at the potential for a Mamma Mia! TV model. “It’ll be a comedy-drama made for TV. I’m not doing that now,” she shortly clarifies, anticipating additional questions. “However I’m simply saying it might occur.”
I can see a Mamma Mia! TV collection on Peacock or Netflix, the BBC, ITV, Sky or no matter, I say.
“And you’d do the unique story going into all of the tales ultimately. Yeah, not doing it but,” she says.
“Nicely, 20 years in the past you didn’t actually take into consideration this stuff. Folks barely pooh-poohed sequels, TV collection. The world is modified, and the demand is for rights and familiarity.”
Judy Craymer the [dancing] Queen, ruler of the Mamma Mia! universe, has spoken.
