Mama Mia, here we go again!

In the last week of October, the Oak Lawn Theater Program (OLTP) put on their annual musical, this year with it being Mama Mia. Mama Mia circulates around main character Sophie (played by Tori Prause) who invites 3 men (played by Orlando Ramirez, Mikey Mills, and Max Cipriani) from her mother’s (played by Emma Faucault Miller) past to her wedding, hoping to find her real father, and have him walk her down the aisle.

Leading up to the show were weeks consisting of planning, acting, set designing, and choreography learning in order to put on the best possible show.

“We had about 8 weeks of rehearsals leading up to the actual performances. We had auditions the first full week of school, started rehearsals the next week after that, and we were practicing all the way up until show week. For rehearsal we typically have it for 3 hours long, 3 days a week until we get closer to show time. They usually start with warm ups that are led by our student officers that are in theater. We split up, we have Mrs. Elliot as the vocal director pulling the students to learn music, we have an outside choreographer that comes in and teaches the dancing components, and I would usually work with select students for acting and blocking their movement during the show”, Director Jeffrey Pastiak said.

The opening of Mama Mia is definitely one to be remembered. The musical features many of the songs of Abba, like “Honey, Honey”, “Money, Money, Money”, “Mama Mia”, “Chiquitita”, “Dancing Queen”, “Super Trouper”, “Voulez-vous”, “Under Attack”, “Slipping Through My Fingers”, “Take a Chance on Me”, and many more. The set constructed by the OLTP crew members was very beautiful, replicating the architecture found in Greece with its blue accents and bougainvillea flowers. The choreography of the cast was very amazing flowing in correspondence with the songs they were with. The acting was spectacular with the cast really letting you see the characters portrayed perfectly through these actors. The singing of the cast members was so fascinating with the fact that they could really draw you into the song, leaving you with the impact that you just needed to hear more. The technicalities of the show were also very impressive with the lights and light effects allowing you to see and feel yourself in the moment of scene, and sound having almost no complications so the audience could fully experience the show. Overall, the musical put on this year was definitely going to be one that is hard to forget.

“I’m really pleased with how it went. My major goal with this production was not only to showcase the talent we have here at Oak Lawn, but to really make this a musical that can bring in the community. A lot of people have been staying away from performances and theater because of COVID, so in that way I think we succeeded in having a fun and joyful show that brought in a lot of people”, Pastiak said.

With this show bringing in lots of  joy and happiness for not just the people in the production, but also the audience that came to watch, we can’t wait to see what the OLTP puts on next!