‘Mamma Mia!’ gets its Moonlight moment in regional premiere at Vista theater

June 5, 2018 11 AM PT

It seems entirely right for a musical that’s set amid the splendors of a Mediterranean island to be staged outdoors.

Or alfresco, to honor the Italian title of this Greece-set show whose score is by a quartet of Swedes.

That’s not the way many people have had a chance to see “Mamma Mia!” — mostly because until very recently, productions of the 1999 jukebox-musical juggernaut were limited to the original Broadway and West End stagings and various tour spinoffs.

Now, though, Moonlight Stage Productions is presenting the San Diego regional premiere of the effervescent show as the opener to the company’s outdoor summer season at Moonlight Amphitheatre in Vista’s Brengle Terrace Park.

“Mamma Mia!” cobbles together about two dozen ABBA songs into the story of a young woman’s quest to learn the identity of her father in time for her island wedding.

Taking on the sizable role of that bride-to-be, Sophie, is one of the most capable young actors in San Diego: Katie Sapper, who has shown startling versatility in both musicals and straight plays since her memorable 2014 professional debut here in La Jolla Playhouse’s “Kingdom City.”

Sapper first became a fan of ABBA not through hearing the hit-making band itself, but via the cover versions by A*Teens, the tribute act that became a phenomenon in the early 2000s. Now, with “Mamma Mia!,” she’s getting reacquainted with ABBA’s infernally unstoppable pop.

“I think everyone can agree that their music is so fun and so awesome,” as she puts it. “You can’t help but rock out to the beat.”

That said, the role of Sophie is a bit of a beast: “I don’t recall another show where I danced as much, sang as much and had as much dialogue all at once,” says Sapper, who has had prime roles in such musicals as “Titanic” and “Sunset Boulevard” at Moonlight as well as San Diego Musical Theatre’s “Damn Yankees.”

(She’s joined in director John Vaughan’s cast by Moonlight royalty Bets Malone as Sophie’s mom, Donna; Barbara Schoenhofer and Karyn Overstreet as Donna’s lifelong pals and former bandmates, Tanya and Rosie; Nicholas Sloan as Sophie’s fiancee, Sky; and Lance Arthur Smith, Jason W. Webb and Robert J. Townsend as Sophie’s three candidate dads. Townsend spent time in the Broadway production of “Mamma Mia!”)

Such ABBA classics as “Dancing Queen,” “Take a Chance on Me” and “SOS” all make it into the musical, which spawned a 2008 movie whose sequel hits screens in July.

Those and other songs’ trademark ABBA harmonies, Sapper says, can be deceptively difficult — which, of course, doesn’t even slightly dampen a “Mamma Mia!” audience’s enthusiasm to sing along.

That vocal competition doesn’t exactly bother Sapper, though:

“It’s the most fun ever.”