Curtain rises on Community Musical Mamma Mia Thursday night

Community theatre returns to the Lester Centre stage this week
With the Thursday to Saturday night run of Mamma Mia!

Some six months in the planning, the first Community musical in five years will take to the stage at the Lester Centre tomorrow evening, the debut for local actors and musicians set to take the audience into the time of Abba.

The excitement for the return of the community effort came in the summer when the Lester Centre announced the schedule for 2022-23 marking the three nights in April for the presentation of Mamma Mia.

The first call for auditions went out in November of 2022 and once the 37 roles had been filled and the cream of Prince Rupert musicians was in place, the challenging work of putting on the show was underway.

Since the fall, the actors and Director Alison O'Toole have taken those early read throughs to the final moments before curtain time tomorrow, Kristy Tillman has been fine tuning the musicians for their part in bringing the Abba experience to the audience as well.

And behind the scenes, an army of helpers led by Dwain Harrison have taken to their work to transform the Lester Centre stage area to reflect those heady days when Abba ruled the popular music world. 

All told, the number of those taking part in the production is near 80 committed to the work, with others lending a hand as the need may be, included among them General Manager of the Lester Centre and Producer for the show Chris Armstrong.

Theatre goers in the city region can take in the result of all of that hard work starting tomorrow night wit the short run for the Lester Centre coming to an end on Saturday evening.

Tickets for the performance are available through the Lester Centre Box Office or at Cooks Jewellers on Third Avenue West.

It's been five years since the community's theatre and music community got together for a Big production, that being 2019's Disaster, so there's sure to be some great anticipation to see how it all comes together for the three nights ahead.

You can catch up on the preparations for the show from the Lester Centre Facebook page.

Some of our past notes on the production along the way can be reviewed below:

April means Mamma Mia showtime for Prince Rupert
Lester Centre set to host Auditions for Community Musical production of Mamma Mia
After a summer of maintenance, Showtime returns for the Lester Centre of the Arts

More notes on the theatre scene in Prince Rupert is available from our Arts and Entertainment archive page.