Northwest’s theater program will perform “Mamma Mia!” from Nov. 14-16 under the direction of theater teacher Sydney Kohart. She said the entire team has been hard at work in the process of auditions, and preparing for the show.

Kohart said her work starts over the summer, much earlier than the cast. 

“I start looking at different set designs and costume designs, seeing how the region influences how people dress, the color palette, and the characters, their motivations, what they want, what the actors need to be able to portray,” Kohart said. “All that prep work gets done on my summer vacation.”

Senior Hadley Wilson, cast as Donna Sheridan, said she was familiar with the show prior to auditioning.

“I’ve always been a ‘Mamma Mia!’ fan. I’ve been an ABBA fan forever. I already knew all the songs, so I was more focused on character work,” said Wilson. 

Wilson said she likes to work on getting the mannerisms and little details specific to her characters. 

“I’ve never played a mom character before,” Wilson said. “I like to go into the audition with the character in mind of what I want to go after, so even before callbacks I tried to show traits of Donna in the audition.”

Contrary to Wilson, senior Vaughn Hoffman, cast as Sam Carmichael, said he was not initially a fan. 

“I hadn’t seen the movie [for a] long time, and when I saw it the first time, if I’m being completely honest, I didn’t like it,” Hoffman said. “So I watched it again. I was like this is actually way better than I thought it was.” 

Hoffman said he also likes to look into a character’s actions and how they speak. 

“I love to do character exploration. I’m always in my room thinking about lines [and thinking about] what I can add,” Hoffman said.

According to Hoffman, theater is a passion he works on outside of school. He said he fell in love with performing at a young age after beginning theater. Hoffman said he has a personal acting coach and a vocal coach he has been attending for about a year and a half. 

“Ever since I got up on stage in my fifth-grade talent show and performed ‘Ice Ice Baby,’ I was like, ‘You know, this is really fun. I think I’m just gonna see what else I can do on stage,’” Hoffman said. “[This is] exactly what I want to do. I’ve always loved making people happy.”

Similarly, senior Savannah Beaman, cast as Sophie Sheridan, started performing at a young age. Her first musical was “Fiddler on the Roof” when she was 8 years old, and she said that was when she fell in love with theater. 

“I think my biggest strength is probably stage presence because no matter if it’s singing, acting, dancing, whatever you’re doing, if you don’t have that look in your eye, that twinkle, that stage presence, you know, [it] doesn’t complete whatever you’re performing,” Beaman said.

While Beaman said she loves theater, there are also challenges involved, the most difficult part of preparing for a performance for her is connecting with her character and their emotions.

“It’s hard because you don’t experience the same things that they do. I haven’t gone through them in real life, so trying to understand how someone else feels when they go through that situation is the hardest part for me,” Beaman said.

Other members of the cast said they find different parts of theater more challenging, like switching from portraying one character to another. Hoffman said it was difficult transitioning to playing Sam Carmichael after recently playing Fester in “The Addams Family.”

“It’s definitely a jump because, I don’t know if I [would] call Fester weird. I [would] call [him] unique, and I love that about him, but with Sam, he’s just more of a guy who knows what he wants. He’s more determined, and he’s more intertwined with culture, like normal. He’s more human,” Hoffman said. 

Despite the challenges they face, Kohart said the cast and crew have dedicated time and hard work to delivering a memorable show and have created a community in doing so.

“Everybody is really supportive, very hard working and really excited. So anytime I’m feeling tired, I just need to hang out with my kids for a while… all the songs, it’s so fun. It’s just you can’t leave in too bad of a mood because the music and the message is so fun,” Kohart said. 

“Mamma Mia!” will be in the Performing Arts Center Nov. 14-16. Click here to buy your tickets now.