THE BUSHNELL WELCOMES THE JOYFUL MUSICAL "MAMMA MIA!" OCTOBER 20-25

What happens when you travel to a beautiful Greek island, add in the exciting music of the Swedish singing group ABBA and complete the picture with a young bride-to-be who wants her father, one of three candidates, to walk her down the aisle? To find the intriguing answer, dance joyfully over to the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford to catch this lively with a capital L smash hit musical “Mamma Mia!” with music and lyrics by ABBA musicians Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus and book by Catherine Johnson from Tuesday, October 20 to Sunday, October 25.

Set on a mythical Greek island, the show is about a daughter Sophie, who at 20 is about to marry. Her fervent wish is to have her father walk her down the aisle, but there’s one small problem. Her mother Donna, a determined and vivacious woman who runs the island taverna, has never spoken Sophie’s father’s name.

So the industrious and clever Sophie sends wedding invitations to the three candidates for fatherhood as determined by invading the privacy of her mom’s diary of twenty one years previously: an architect Sam, an Australian travel writer Bill and a proper British banker Harry. All three men accept the invitation they believe is from Donna and show up conveniently on the eve of Sophie’s nuptials to Sky.

Fortunately the unsuspecting Donna has the moral grounding of Tanya and Rosie, the members of her old singing group, who literally and figuratively support her when the sparks of mistrust and accusations start to fly. The great ABBA songs like “Dancing Queen,” “The Name of the Game,” “S.O.S.,” “Thank You for the Music,” “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do,” and “The Winner Takes It All” and more than a dozen more, make this show sparkle with neon lights that spell Amazing, Bouncy, Beautiful, and Alive, in snappy and pulsating style.

For tickets ($50 and up) call the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, 166 Capitol Avenue in Hartford at 860-987-5900 or online at bushnell.evenue.net/events/MAMMA. Performances are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Come two hours early for a Fall Festival in the courtyard for fall themed food and drinks and outdoor games for fun.

Once upon a time a girl prays to have her father at her side for her wedding day. Is it a blessing or a curse when her prayers are answered three times over? Catch the joy of “Mamma Mia!” and discover for yourself. Wedding gifts are optional.