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Mamma Mia! premiered in London on April 6, 1999 at the Prince Edward Theatre, transferring to the Prince of Wales Theatre in 2004. The original London cast included: Siobhan McCarthy (Donna), Louise Plowright (Tanya), Jenny Galloway (Rosie), and Paul Clarkson (Harry). The North American premiere of the show was at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, Ontario on May 23, 2000. After fourteen previews, the Broadway production opened on October 18, 2001, at the Winter Garden Theatre. The original Broadway cast included Louise Pitre (Donna), Judy Kaye (Rosie), and Karen Mason (Tanya).
On May 15, 2005, Mamma Mia! surpassed the original Broadway runs of The Sound of Music, The King and I, and Damn Yankees with 1,500 performances. As of September 9, 2006, it is the 24th longest running Broadway musical of all time.
In June 2005, Mamma Mia! played its 1,000th performance in Las Vegas, becoming the longest running, and most successful Broadway play ever in Las Vegas.
On April 19, 2006, it was revealed on Playbill.com and Broadway.com that a film version of the musical will be made and will arrive in cinemas in Summer of 2008. It will be directed by Phyllida Lloyd with Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Benny Andersson as executive producers. Meryl Streep will star as Donna Sheridan along with Pierce Brosnan as Sam Carmichael. The movie will also feature Christine Baranski, Colin Firth, and Julie Walters.
As of October 2006, the musical has been performed in 9 languages: English, German, Japanese, Dutch, Korean, Spanish, Swedish, Flemish, and Russian, with, in addition to the West End and Broadway productions, productions currently playing in Hamburg, Las Vegas, Stuttgart, Moscow, Essen, Gothenburg, Tel Aviv, Fukuoka, and Seongnam, South Korea. There are planned productions for Berlin and Barcelona, and productions have closed in Toronto, Tokyo, Utrecht, Seoul, Madrid, Osaka, Daegu, Stockholm, and Antwerp. Lone van Roosendaal has played Donna in 3 different countries and in 3 different languages: Dutch, Flemish and German.
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