This month marks the third time in five years that the ABBA musical Mamma Mia comes to Alberta, with stops in Calgary September 21st to 26th, and Edmonton September 28th to October 3rd. What is it about the fairly simple story of a young girl seeking her father on her wedding day, set to ABBA music, that keeps people coming back?
“It is fun, it is universal, if you have seen it you might want to bring your grandmother, or see it with girlfriends, with different people in different roles,” Alison Ewing, who plays Tanya, told GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine. “To have it come back and see a different company do it is great. The music of ABBA is so timeless. 1974 is when they started writing all this great music and it still is not old after all that time. Still so fun and great to sing, like having a giant party. The familiarity with the music helps - everybody knows it. It is so nice to see a show and know the words by heart and sing along. Something, a memory, resonates in your mind with songs that really means something. You wouldn’t think any of it would make a plot but it works out really well.”
Ewing had just wrapped up a day of rehearsals in New York, where the new cast of the touring production has been working on perfecting the show. Her own journey to the role has been a decade in the making.
“I think everyone except for four people in the Ensemble are all new. They revamped the whole tour so it could travel faster and visit some cities it hasn’t been before. They’ve re-cast all of the leads. We are all just reworking the show so it is like starting a brand new play all over again. 10 years ago I was doing Cabaret in New York. I had a friend who had left the show and was doing the role of Tanya. She recommended I audition in Los Angeles as a dancer and the understudy of Tanya. I didn’t book it and was told I was too young. A few years ago Mamma Mia was to open in Vegas and I was living in California and drove out and re-audition. I auditioned for Donna and didn’t get the role, I wasn’t right for the part. It was a good thing I went to Vegas because when they were doing this casting they called me and wanted to see me in LA. I drove down from San Francisco. My third audition in ten years! It is funny to think that it took me growing into the right age and role, and the revamped tour [meant] I was finally the right [person]. I am really happy about that.”
Ewing is looking forward to visiting Western Canada for the first time.
“I love being on the road more than anything. I am very excited about Canada. I do love to explore and hike and run. I live in California and there aren’t a lot of fall leaves so I am looking forward to seeing them change. …I have only been to Toronto once, so I am excited to go to other areas of Canada and see what it is all about. …I love hearing the different accents, seeing the different food, it is really exciting for me. Plus living in hotels, you don’t have to make your bed.”
The contrast between Tanya, the wealthy divorcé with multiple ex-husbands, and her own life is what makes the role fun, she says.
“I am an Iowa girl right off the farm so playing a role like Tanya is absolutely a joy. I love these kinds of roles so much. …I have short fingernails and don’t wear a ton of makeup, so to step into this woman right off Park Avenue in her fancy suits is so wonderful. At the same time she comes from a place of deep friendship with these girls. You see the person she was when she was younger, and there is a lot more to her than a snooty high maintenance woman. These are the roles I love, over the top crazy people who are opposite of what I am.”
In the film, the role was taken on by the incredible Christine Baranski.
“She is such a famous person doing a role like that so well, there is a lot of pressure. But our director and choreographers are so good about beginning the building of your character from a natural place that feels good to you. …I am somewhere in the middle of a fully developed Tanya and confident I will make it my own. I am pulling character traits from many people including Christine Baranski.”
In fact, she may have had a few helpful hints in playing the role directly from the film and stage star.
“We were in rehearsal the other day and I was rehearsing Does Your Mother Know, which is Tanya’s big number in the second act. I was just talking about Christine and how she did the number in the movie when she walked into our rehearsal room. She said I’m just doing a voiceover at a studio down the hall and I heard you singing and came in to say hello. It was so random for her to walk into the room and sit down to watch right as we were doing her big number. She couldn’t have been nicer…she is a well put together woman for sure. She talked to us about how different it was to shoot the number while dancing on sand on an actual beach. It was interesting to hear how it worked on a movie set [compared to] on stage. It was cool to have her there [even] for a minute.” 