Mamma Mia! (National Tour)

Mamma Mia! is one of my all-time favorite shows, so I had been excited to see this show. I had last seen a local production in 2022 at Village Theatre in Issaquah, Washington, and I expected this national tour would be at least as good as the fantastic production Village Theatre created a few years prior. I was wrong.

This national tour, at least the performance my night, had absolutely horrible sound engineering. I felt like I was at the fairgrounds listening to beautiful voices on a cheap public address system. This isn’t fair to the performers, and bad sound is a pet peeve of mine. It just isn’t acceptable to have bad sound at a musical. I wondered if this was a non-equity tour, but this poor sound was indeed at an equity production.

In addition to the unacceptable sound, there seemed to be minimal lighting, a minimal set, and fewer costumes than I am used to in a Mamma Mia! production.

All that said, the audience seemed to very much enjoy the show. My conclusion is if you have never seen Mamma Mia! before, if you have never seen a high quality national tour like Life of Pi or Wicked, and if you have never seen a show in New York, then you may love this tour.

This is the same production that will do a limited run in New York, so I’m curious to see the reviews for the upcoming New York performance. We can expect that in New York, at least the sound quality should be good. If you take this minimal show and fix the sound quality, then I believe it can be a great time, even if not at the quality of the other shows running right now.

I see many shows at this venue and know the sound can be acceptable at a national tour at this venue, so is it just lack of experience at specific performances? These tickets are too expensive and the performers work too hard for the sound quality to be this poor.

There are so many incredible shows running in New York right now, I cannot recommend seeing this show during its limited run in New York unless perhaps The New York Times and others validate they have corrected their sound issues.

See more show reviews from 2025.