If you want a good fun time, you can’t go wrong with the crowd-pleasing musical Mamma Mia! as it makes its Los Angeles pit stop at the Center Theatre Group for their 2026 North American tour. While this production doesn’t quite offer anything new to the table, it is bolstered by wonderful choreography and a tremendous cast, particularly Jalynn Steele and Carly Sakolove who outright steal the entire musical every time they show up.

Set on a Greek island paradise where the sun always shines, a tale of love, friendship, and identity is beautifully told through the timeless hits of ABBA. On the eve of her wedding, a daughter’s quest to discover the father she’s never known brings three men from her mother’s past back to the island they last visited decades ago. For over 25 years, people all around the world have fallen in love with the characters, the story, and the music that make Mamma Mia! the ultimate feel-good show.

Mamma Mia! is enjoying its 25th anniversary tour and with this go around, the production plays it safe with their setting and interpretation so that if you seen earlier iterations and/or seen the film version, you know what to expect. That being said, you can’t go wrong with the amount of fun director Phyllida Lloyd and the creative team injects into this one. There are some notable global majority casting in significant positions for this one, particularly Juliette M. Ojeda as Sophie, Jalynn Steele as Tanya, and Grant Reynolds as Sky. Unfortunately, the opening night performance did not have him so I’ll most likely have to check this musical again before it ends its Los Angeles run on July 19th. While there are a few other global majority actors here and there for the ensemble, this is a mostly white cast that does make me fondly remember the inspiring Filipino version East West Players did for their rendition back in 2019.

Speaking of Jalynn Steele, we do need to talk about her as she and Carly Sakolove who play Donna’s best friends Tanya and Rosie not only stole the performance every time they showed up, they basically have committed felony as they inject a mad rush of adrenaline into the musical’s bloodstream in all their glorious moments. The physical comedy and timing these two actresses have for their roles may be the best versions I’ve ever seen of my multiple viewings of this musical and will be undeniably the most memorable highlights.

The rest of the cast are no slouches either as Juliette M. Ojeda is endearingly sweet as Sophie and Jessica Crouch‘s down to earth performance as Donna transforms into a blisteringly powerful number near the end with her “The Winner Takes It All” that brings the entire house down. While I wish there was more diversity in the three father prospects (particularly if you have Ojeda as the daughter), Leland Burnett, Victor Wallace, and Rob Hancock all played their parts well.

Technically, the only critical note I can give is that there needs to be more of a balance between the orchestra and the actors onstage as the orchestral volume more often than not drowned out the actors who were singing for their lives to be heard. And unfortunately the stereotype that second acts for musicals often lag behind their much more energetic first act counterpart applies here where even though Mamma Mia! gets into the more dramatic aspects for the second act, it loses the steam immensely. This is probably something the musical book writer Catherine Johnson was more than aware of as the musical ends with a bang, reprising “Dancing Queen” for all the audience members to wake up and get up on their feet.

Nitpicks and a largely white cast aside, you’ll have a ton of fun with this one. Mamma Mia! is playing at the Ahmanson Theatre till July 19th. Located on 135 N Grand Ave, Los Angeles. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 7:30. Fridays at 8:00. Saturdays at 2:00 and 8:00. Sundays at 1:00 and 7:00. You can buy tickets here.