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 few third movie, however tantalizing snippets emerge over lunch in Mayfair, London. There’s point out, as an illustration, of worldwide phenomenon Sabrina Carpenter being looked for a job within the subsequent image.
There’s additionally discuss of a potential TV model of Mamma Mia! too, however that’s approach 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 “beautiful” George Clooney and the play Good Night time, and Good Luck into that handle. I jest that, maybe Clooney would possibly need to hold round and play one of many male leads.
What a riot that might trigger.
However Mamma Mia! on stage, at the very least, by no means has relied on above-the-title names aside from these of ABBA’s Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.
Craymer’s identify needs to be high of the invoice too. I imply, Cameron Waterproof coat places his identify in lights in every single place.
It’s Craymer’s drive and dedication 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 subject 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 type of jollies me alongside to the tube station, particularly if I’ve needed to sit via 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 affords town a “consolation blanket.”
It’s an apt phrase. On September 11, 2001, Craymer, director Phyllida Lloyd, choreographer Anthony Van Laast and the solid had 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 Photos by way of Getty Photos)
Rudy Giuliani was mayor then, says Craymer, “and he was very eager that Broadway stored going, which was type of good as a result of everybody did. However we had been really placing on a present. We had 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 had been like: ‘That is what we do. So now we have to do it. If we don’t do it loads, individuals 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 bear in mind being in NYC as quickly as we had been allowed to journey after that darkish day. And I’ll always remember the sensation that Mamma Mia! was in the suitable place on the proper time. It helped cheer 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 occasions 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 occasions … 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 mates. 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 quite a lot of love” for the manufacturing throughout the U.S.
The present’s success is, in fact, all the way down to the songs, however my robust perception is that it’s additionally as a result of it’s underpinned by a stable 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 really isn’t a typical Broadway present; it’s not all concerning the set, which could be very delicate, but it surely 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 beautiful Greek island accessible to all, not in a luxurious resort.
“You weren’t immediately in White Lotus,” she asserts, “you had been actually in sandals on a seashore simply having a easy idyllic time. But it surely wasn’t a typical large, shiny, shiny set. And the identical, with Phyllida’s path, the subtlety of bringing the type of Shakespearean themes out, which individuals would say, ‘Judy, don’t be so pretentious.’ These themes relate to individuals, of oldsters, moms, daughters, hope, identification — all these issues that feed into it. Initially they had been there, however I feel they’ve change into 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! quite a lot of momentum and that got here from the films 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 change into a “cultural engine.” It’s honest to say that again in 1999, ABBA had been type of uncool, “however then we hit a type 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 creating it practically 30 years in the past, none of that existed.”
Craymer, reasonably 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 Area 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 raring to discover a house for it in NYC.
I don’t suppose ABBA could be wherever close to as standard now had it not been for Mamma Mia! which got here from an authentic concept by Craymer.
At first, 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 — nevertheless cool promoting is now, nevertheless cool digital is — you may’t fault phrase of mouth. After all, now phrase of mouth is social media, actually.”
The factor about travelling on public transport, for me, at the very least, is that one picks up on what individuals chatter about as they make their approach residence after a present. Eavesdropping on conversations, I’ve not too long ago heard individuals, primarily girls, planning for hen events to see the present on Broadway. They’ve already seen it in London, they know the films, and the following step is New York.
Smiling, Craymer observes that “individuals want that. Like individuals 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 recollections and nostalgia feeds into all of these into Instagram, TikTok and all the pieces. The story arc of Mamma Mia! contains everyone,” she says, noting that it’s the identical with the films.
“All the lads 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’m wondering.
Craymer demurs, however once I push, she says: “She’d be a goddess or some relation who would look very very like 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 live shows, so she appears a pure match for the following film.
“It’ll occur when it occurs,” she says firmly.
Craymer means that it’s the storyline that excites individuals .
“It’s not about sequels or redoing stuff. It’s about individuals participating with characters, whether or not it’s change into a behavior or streaming or favourite movies. It’s like listening to music over and over. Like studying a e-book. You would possibly learn it twice. Individuals learn Dickens many occasions. No, IP continues on, and the film is essential for me creatively greater than something. But in addition as a result of I feel the world wants one other enjoyable expertise. Cinema is having a tricky time. [It] wouldn’t be a giant costly Marvel film, however individuals would go.”
Take a look at the current Bridget Jones: Mad Concerning the Boy film, which “simply did extremely properly,” she says admiringly.
The third Mamma Mia! movie is on monitor and is properly into growth. “Properly, 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 had been all linked via it and big friendships developed.”
She praises Lloyd, who directed the primary movie, who as a prolific theatre director “created a type of theatre repertory firm [of the film’s core cast]. Everybody’s all in. So there was no type of, ‘Oh no, we’ve received 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 bunch of rep actors all on tour.”
Would Meryl Streep’s character Donna someway make a reappearance? Craymer nods affirmatively.
“Yeah, she mentioned our after-shooting dinners had 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 robust to get proper. When you don’t mould 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 incorrect analogy. But it surely you haven’t received the suitable elements … then they don’t work.”
That top-flight solid 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 solid, they turned 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 desires to affix in and whether or not that embraces new characters, new solid … and that’s within the films, however the identical within the reveals. We’ve all the time had implausible casts and so they’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 solid again within the present.”
Mamma Mia! will do a six-month run on Broadway, although it all the time may return at a later date, Craymer says.
This Mamma’s had one helluva journey through the years and has, as Craymer places it, change into “an unimaginable IP with ABBA” that you just by no means got down to create. “And I feel if you happen to do attempt, it doesn’t work.”
She concedes that these days “when individuals need content material, there’s the films, the stage present, there’s different productions of the stage present, and finally there’ll in all probability be a TV sequence or one thing.”
My eyes pop at the opportunity of 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 may occur.”
I can see a Mamma Mia! TV sequence 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 finally. Yeah, not doing it but,” she says.
“Properly, 20 years in the past you didn’t actually take into consideration this stuff. Individuals barely pooh-poohed sequels, TV sequence. 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.
