The cream of Armidale theatrical talent has been presenting one of the best feel-good shows around this month, albeit to a reduced audience.
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The Armidale Drama and Musical Society (ADMS) had to refund and resell half the tickets to its production of Mamma Mia to meet COVID-19 reduced seating capacity regulations three times during the show's season.
But the show did go on, and those who were lucky enough to score a seat were delighted.
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The Express attended the penultimate performance on Friday night at the TAS Hoskins Centre, and the strictly enforced COVID-19 rules didn't dampen anyone's spirits. So we couldn't resist the opportunity to capture a sign of the times with a social gallery.
The stellar cast of the ADMS put on an energy-filled performance that had the crowd foot tapping and clapping instead of the usual pre-covid dancing and singing audience participation the show elicits.
Mamma Mia (which features more than 22 ABBA songs) has been seen by more than nine million people and played more than 8,000 performances. It originally opened at London's Prince Edward Theatre in April 1999, before transferring to the Prince of Wales Theatre in 2004, and to its current home at the Novello Theatre in 2012.
In 2019 the musical was made available for amateur theatre groups to perform, and the ADMS rushed to secure performance rights.
ADMS president Neil Horton directed the production and described it as '16 weeks of blood, sweat and toil from a wonderful team of creatives'.
"Each show brings its own challenges and this one was the rather large and ambitious set," Mr Horton said.
"A wonderful new collaboration with the Armidale Men's Shed has been a godsend and I hope the start of a beautiful friendship."
Globally the musical has been seen in 50 productions in 16 different languages and grossed more than $US4 billion ($A5.6 billion) at the box office.
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