One show only: Essar Centre, July 26

NEWS RELEASE

ESSAR CENTRE

************************* Walks down aisle at the Essar Centre

The global smash hit will play for one show only

SAULT STE. MARIE, ON (November 21, 2011) - Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’ Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based on the songs of ABBA, plays to the Essar Centre in July 2012.

The performance will be on Thursday, July 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the Essar Centre, 269 Queen Street East.

Seen by over 50 million people around the world, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’ global smash hit musical Mamma Mia! is celebrating over 4,000 performances in its tenth smash hit year at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre and remains among Broadway’s top-selling musicals.

The current North American Tour has played over 3,700 performances in over 150 cities with 145 repeat visits.

The original West End production of Mamma Mia! is now in its thirteenth year and has celebrated over 5,000 performances in London and the international tour has visited more than 50 foreign cities and been seen by 4 million people.

The blockbuster feature film adaptation of Mamma Mia!, produced by Judy Craymer and Gary Goetzman, is the most successful movie musical of all time grossing $600 million worldwide.

With a worldwide gross of over $2 Billion, Mamma Mia! is acclaimed by the Associated Press as "quite simply, a phenomenon."

An independent, single mother who owns a small hotel on an idyllic Greek island, Donna is about to let go of Sophie, the spirited daughter she’s raised alone.

For Sophie’s wedding, Donna has invited her two lifelong best girlfriends - practical and no-nonsense Rosie and wealthy, multi-divorcee Tanya - from her one-time backing band, Donna and the Dynamos.

But Sophie has secretly invited three guests of her own.

On a quest to find the identity of her father to walk her down the aisle, she brings back three men from Donna’s past to the Mediterranean paradise they visited 20 years earlier.

Over 24 chaotic, magical hours, new love will bloom and old romances will be rekindled on this lush island full of possibilities.

Inspired by the storytelling magic of ABBA’s songs from “Dancing Queen” and “S.O.S.” to “Money, Money, Money” and “Take a Chance on Me,” Mamma Mia! is a celebration of mothers and daughters, old friends and new family found.

Mamma Mia!will play at the Essar Centre on Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets for Mamma Mia! are $52.50, $62.50 and $72.50 plus applicable taxes.

Tickets will go on sale Friday, November 25 at 10 a.m. and be available through the Essar Centre box office, online or by calling 1-866-775-9422.

Produced by Judy Craymer, Richard East and Björn Ulvaeus for Littlestar in association with Universal, the creative team responsible for bringing Mamma Mia! to theatrical life includes some of the most gifted and celebrated talents of musical theatre and opera.

With music and lyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, Mamma Mia! is written by Catherine Johnson and directed by Phyllida Lloyd.

Mamma Mia! has choreography by Anthony Van Laast, production design by Mark Thompson, lighting design by Howard Harrison, sound design by Andrew Bruce and Bobby Aitken, and musical supervision, additional material and arrangements by Martin Koch.

The special edition cast recording of Mamma Mia! is available on Decca Broadway.

For information about Mamma Mia!, go to this website.

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