"Mamma Mia" question (ref. NYTimes)

[joeyvalcort]

Posted: 12/29/10 at 12:30am

Okay, I loved "Mamma Mia" -- shoot me!

Oddly, I haven't seen it on Bway (London and on tour a couple of times). Here's the question that one of you fine folks might be able to answer for me, and it references a line from David Itzkoff's ArtsBeat blog post on Playbill making their delivery.

He wrote, "...and audience members at “Mamma Mia!” will know exactly when in Act I they can expect to hear “Dancing Queen.""

Here's my question: When I saw the show, the programs didn't list when the songs were performed, it just listed them in alphabetical order. Does the Broadway program do that differently?

(And I swear I'm not being nit-picky here, or tweaking Itzkoff, I actually like his writing quite a bit! Just curious if they do something different on Broadway.)

Thanks in advance if you can help answer!

[adamgreer]

Posted: 12/29/10 at 12:36am

The songs are listed alphabetically on Broadway as well.

I assume he means that the audience can figure out when it's going to be performed...it's telegraphed pretty obviously in the scene prior to the song. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what they're setting up.