Mamma Mia Tickets

ABBA haven’t performed together in many years, but their music lives on in Mamma Mia!, which has run on stage for over ten years, has been seen by over 42 million people, and has grossed over $2 billion. Mamma Mia! Is what’s classified as a “jukebox musical,” meaning a musical based around hit songs instead of newly composed music, and it includes many of ABBA’s hits like “Dancing Queen,” “Lay All Your Love On Me,” “Take a Chance On Me,” “SOS” and more.

Mamma Mia! What an Amazing Musical!

Producer Judy Craymer, who had previously worked for Andrew Lloyd Weber lyricist Tim Rice, first came up with the idea for Mamma Mia! in the eighties when the BB of ABBA, Benny and Bjorn, were working on the music for the play Chess, which spawned the hit “One Night In Bangkok.” Craymer did end up producing several documentaries for ABBA, but it took some time for the musical to come together. Once the group agreed to do it in 1997, three of the members, Anni-Frid, Benny and Bjorn, were all heavily involved in Mamma Mia’s creation.

Mamma Mia! opened on London’s West End in 1999, and premiered in the United States in 2000. Mamma Mia! has played all over the world, and also spawned the hit movie adaptation starring Meryl Streep, who was a fan after seeing it on Broadway. The movie adaptation of Mamma Mia! broke the record for biggest box office opening for a movie musical, and is also the highest grossing film in the United Kingdom. Mamma Mia! is also the 12th longest running Broadway musical, beating out The Sound of Music, The King and I, and Damned Yankees, and was nominated for numerous Tony and Olivier awards.

Mamma Mia! Success

ABBA, who were together from 1972 to 1982, are reportedly the fourth most popular artist in music history. ABBA have sold 375 million albums world-wide, and they still sell 2-3 million albums a year. Adapting their wonderful pop hits into a musical was a stroke of genius, bringing their music to new generations of fans, and bringing out generations of fans who have loved ABBA for years.

The success of Mamma Mia! brought ABBA’s greatest hits album, ABBA Gold, back to #1 on the UK charts, and Mamma Mia! has proven a big success for the show’s producers as well, who are now reportedly among the wealthiest women in England.