iTunes Exclusive Episode Mamma Mia

The following is a sooner orgator production.
What the heck?
Rob, am I listening to the clubhouse podcast?
Yes, yes you are.
Welcome, member or members of the Empire.
To get another...
Atoons exclusive!
Episode of the Clubhouse podcast, our normal live show every Sunday night, 7 Eastern 4 Pacific,
but if you're listening to this, it means not only are you a member of the Empire,
which we greatly appreciate, it means you subscribed to this show on Itoons.
Because we like to give a little extra to the people who love that extra mile.
That would be you.
We welcome each and every one of you.
My name is Rob, I am the executive producer and ringmaster of this three-ring circus.
What you're about to hear is something we have never done before.
This will be a...
What is a series of firsts this year?
But before we get into what exactly is going on here,
let me introduce you to the people in the room.
Joining me across the desk as he tends to do is the co-producer of this show.
And a man who might have a different view on a few things after last night, he is chat.
Indeed he does.
Also joining us is the official fact checker of this show.
And a man...
He's a bit of a hofer.
I'm not going to lie to you.
He could give Denny Terrio a run for his money.
Okay, let's not get too many.
You may know him is fun, don't go.
But it's my name and don't board.
I'm going to call him Don Ford.
Welcome to the studio sir.
Thank you again.
You know, you drive this car.
That keeps on losing the wheels in the axle, you know?
We are driving a skills.
We are driving into uncharted territory tonight, but in a very good way.
But no longer uncharted after this episode.
Oh, no, no.
This is great.
On this show we have reviewed movies.
We have reviewed television shows.
But tonight, for the first time ever, hopefully of more to come,
we are reviewing a musical.
And not a musical movie, although it's been made into a movie,
an actual stage production that the three of us were fortunate enough
to be able to watch the opening night of Don.
Would you care to thank our friends over there?
Oh, we have to think the first stop, Joanne Halt.
Joanne, thank you so much.
We can appreciate what you do for Den for us on this.
And we look forward to a great relationship.
Also dial some of our musical series.
Also the musical fair park.
But Joanne Halt, we can't think enough.
We look forward to a long, long, great relationship.
Opening last night, June 3rd.
For those of you, you know, trying to keep track of chronology on this show.
Mama Mia will be playing for about 12 days
at the musical at Fair Park until June 15th.
Correct, Father's Day.
And if you might be thinking yourself or Rob,
maybe I don't live in Dallas for a worth.
What does this atom disclosion have to do with me?
Well, it's the traveling production of Mama Mia.
So you may glean a little information from this
when this production comes to your town,
wherever you are as part of the empire in the world.
If you've been living in a cave,
allow me to explain the premise of Mama Mia.
Mama Mia is a story of a young girl named Sophie.
Who's getting married.
And she's only child of a single mother named Donna.
And she never really knew anything about her father.
So she decides that she wants to find out about her father.
She stumbles upon one of her mother's diaries.
And looks for the diary that would cover the time
of when she might have been conceived.
Which is all well and good.
But the only problem there is there are three possible men
who could be her father.
So she invites all of them to her wedding,
her wedding, unbeknownst to her mother.
And hilarity ensues.
So, but this is not just an animal stage performance.
This has a special soundtrack.
And this is all based on the music of Abba,
which is why you're hearing Abba in the background.
You heard a racist version of Take a Chance on Me,
just a little bit ago.
One of my favorite personal avisongs.
And yes, I have a favorite avisongs.
And I'm keeping my man cards with Go Pound Sand.
Chabra gonna start with you.
Of course you are.
Well, let's start with the story itself.
Were you intrigued?
Now let's let's preface this by saying
going into this.
Not real high on the Abba.
No, I wasn't.
But you were intrigued?
Yes.
And you said, you know what?
I'm gonna check this thing out.
How did you feel about the story telling itself?
I was somewhat familiar with the plot,
just because the movie had come out.
Even though I never saw the man to say free to everybody
and their brother.
And the premise of the film
you're considering who they got to play the roles.
It just never seemed to really gel with me.
James Bond is possibly her father.
Yes.
And Meryl Streep and a singing role just
didn't click with me either.
Well, we will get to that, though.
I want to put a pin in that.
And incidentally, I do believe that this particular tour
this is where it's stopped.
Is this the final stop on the tour?
And it's the longest run on the tour.
Go Us.
I mean, we get a 12 day run,
but we're lucky to get more than two.
Wow, okay.
So yeah, go Us indeed.
And I knew,
was vaguely familiar with the story,
but didn't really have all that much interest in it
because it just sounded like a chick flick to me.
Okay.
And I was like, you know what?
Why not?
I'll give it a shot.
I'll try anything once.
Do I regret it?
Absolutely not.
But did you, I mean, the story itself
Absolutely.
Okay.
Yeah.
Don.
The story line.
I really like the story line.
Like how they have a little twist on it.
It's not a big Hollywood production film.
This is a play.
And they do it in a very good way.
I like the chemistry that they had in there
and the building of the story.
It didn't seem to drag out or leg to me.
And I thought, well, I really like the comedy.
They had a lot of good comedy in it also.
So I thought they had some really, really good twist with the storyline.
I was intrigued by the story as well.
I thought it was told honestly.
I felt that there was never a timer.
I was like, can we move this along?
The pacing of the story.
I thought was very, very good.
It held my attention.
A lot of great characters within the story that kind of kept driving it.
There were certain times where I kind of went.
Okay.
Where's this going to go?
And then there was a payoff for me, which I liked.
The performances.
I want to start to get into that a little bit.
I am a musician.
I'm a vocalist.
So I have a kind of an appreciation for things of a musical nature,
which is a double-edged story because sometimes I can be hyper critical as well.
Because I'm tied.
I loved the performances in this.
And I want to talk specifically about a couple of people.
Chelsea Williams and the role of Sophie.
There was never a feeling of fakeness to it.
Like she genuinely played the role.
And she played the role well.
The standout for me personally is Rebecca Mason Wigel.
Absolutely.
Donna.
She was the understudy.
That was such a shock.
She was a Georgia Kate Hayes who had a family emergency and had to leave.
And that's a tough thing to do for opening night.
But she came in there and she knocked it out of the park.
The chemistry between the mother daughter.
You really felt that there was a genuine chemistry there.
And I had to add something to that.
Please do.
When you look at the production photos on the website and in the television ads that they're running.
And of course you see who was originally supposed to play that role.
And all the printed media and everything.
The fact that Rebecca looks more like she could actually be the mother of this girl playing her daughter.
They look very, very similar at fair point.
I was like, how did they not pick this woman in the first place?
Don't kick in.
Oh, look with Rebecca also.
I thought I agree if you guys 100%.
And her singing was incredible.
The winner takes it.
I was going to say great performance of that song.
I choked up.
That's in a row about lost it.
And one one side when I also thought was Carly Sekalo who played Rosie there.
I thought her character was really good.
I like both her and Gabrielle Mirabel as the childhood friends of her mom.
They were in a singing group together.
You really believed that they grew up together.
There was never there was no forced chemistry.
I thought the flow of between the characters went very, very well.
You know, part of that comes with the longer that you do a production.
But there's those intangibles that you could really tell that they were having fun.
And they had gotten to that comfort level with each other.
And I've just thought she kind of kicked out with a comedy.
See what showed so great on that.
I thought.
And her doing a take a chance on me.
What's she was?
One of my favorite episodes.
One of my favorite episodes.
That one in SOS, which both were great performances.
They hit that out of the park last night too.
And I have kind of an embarrassing confession to make.
Please do for years.
I always just assumed that whenever musicals played at the Dallas Fair Park musical.
That they were all local actors.
Really?
I really did think that.
Honest of God thought that it was just local actors performing at the local theater.
Huh.
Did not.
So the her concept of the traveling production didn't.
It really didn't.
It never really sunk in.
Great job also by the orchestra in this film.
Very, very minimal orchestra.
You're talking like six pieces and a conductor.
Played the music dead on.
Really kind of lead thing.
The transitions I thought were amazing.
It's.
When you're doing a stage production.
It's very tough to do transitioning from one scene to another.
Because it's all happening in a limited space.
They made it work very well.
Extremely well.
And you never, you never looked like, oh, these are stage hands.
They were actually actors in the play that we're doing.
Moving the props and moving the furniture around was great.
Because it gave a little bit more character to the film.
And it was a very black box theater type set up.
Where they just kept moving two pieces on stage as the stage said.
And just by.
But we weren't around in different angles.
It completely.
You never ever lost the illusion.
The illusion was never broken.
Even though you would watch it happen.
The illusion was never broken that we're in a new room now.
Even though it's the same set that really worked.
But I have to get back to the band.
They were in great job by the band.
The music was spot on the singing was spot on to it.
In my opinion.
And one thing hearing it in that hall with all the acoustic.
Which is what it's designed for.
Yes.
And that was through the roof.
I thought on that.
And there was a one point.
And if you look at a red reviews on the clubhouse.com.
And my review, I've been here a little point seeing that.
This looks.
This sounded so incredible.
It looked.
It sounded so perfect.
I go or they lip syncing.
You did ask me that during the show.
I was like, no, sir, they are singing that live because that is the purpose.
And it was that good to me.
I was so impressed.
Now, if there's a downside here.
I think that the opening scene might have been overacted a tad.
I kind of got that feeling of.
We're in a stage play.
But it kind of.
It once it got settled into itself.
There was more of a natural flow to the acting.
I mean, what's hoping their friends come out of it.
Yeah, they're very, very beginning.
My other, my other, if I could give one other criticism from a technical standpoint.
When the actors were singing.
The band tended to drown them out more than they should.
There needs to be a better balance where the music is the accompaniment.
I was kind of struggling to hear vocals at certain points.
I mean, and when you're in a more boisterous number,
like the winner takes it all or knowing you knowing me.
That's fine.
But there's got to be a balance there.
I mean, the technology has come so far.
Like you found out down during the intermission.
The microphones were in their hair.
And once you knew that, you could see it.
You could see the, the chords.
Yeah.
But there's got to be a better awareness from a vocal standpoint.
And maybe it's because I am a vocalist that I get more sensitive to that.
But I mean, those are my only criticisms.
I mean, that's, that's your way ahead of the curve at that point.
And if you asked for a review, I put a thing in there.
My three standouts were SOS, winner takes it all in dancing queen.
At the beginning in the end, they did incredible.
It sounded just like almost as good as the band.
And if you've never been to a stage production.
Don't leave just because you think the play is over.
Oh, no.
Because they did one another 10 minutes.
Well, after that, the bowing and the performing and everything else.
That is, that is a regular thing with them.
That it's, it is, it is, it is tradition for that show that the, the last three songs,
the encore finale medley that the cast performs.
Mom and me at Dancing Queen and Waterloo brings the house.
Okay.
And I'm a bit of a waterloo.
I'll enjoy that song very much.
And I was getting a little crazy there.
Yeah.
Don was done.
We said a move.
We see we saw a side of Mr. Ford that I didn't think existed.
That's why I saw it.
That's why I saw it.
That's why I saw it.
You know what?
There it is.
There it is right there.
He has now officially earned his title of Fundango.
Done.
Fundango is the Dancing Queen.
Easy.
Easy.
What's your favorite?
What's your favorite ever song, Mom?
Actually.
I'm not going to call you.
I'm not going to call you.
I'm not going to call you.
I'm not going to call you.
Queen.
Come on.
Be nice.
We had it.
It's a great time.
Man.
Cannot think Joanne and the crew enough.
An absolute blast.
Congratulations to the cast and crew on an amazing performance.
We're going to kind of change the final analysis.
We're going to kind of change the final analysis a little bit on this.
Again, else like you said.
Thank you so much Joanne for, you know, letting us in on this.
And we look forward to such a long relationship in the future.
And if there's anything we could be for you.
Let's know.
Absolutely.
Down some of musicals.
Let us come in and also, you know, to the great folks at the musical for park.
You know, we got to think all this people.
Thank you so much.
So let's change up the final analysis a little bit.
Because normally when we write movies or TV shows, it's, would you go see this again?
And if so, how would you see it?
Well, you only have one way to see it.
I'm just going to go ahead and say, go see this musical.
Now, like Chad said, this is the last up in this particular tour.
But I would bet you dollars to donuts.
It will tour again.
Go see Mama Mia.
It's a lot of fun.
Leave your leave your machismo card at the door.
And go in and just have a good time.
Much like fun.
Don't go dead.
You're, you're follow his lead.
Your significant other will thank you for it later.
And you may, you may discover something about yourself in the meantime.
Sitting there that, wow.
This is cool.
The music just used appropriately.
I didn't feel like I was getting beaten over the head with Abba.
Yeah, I didn't feel like I was in an Abba concert.
Yeah, it was, it was like the music enhanced a great story.
It's a play with music.
It's not like less miss or something like that.
Or it's all smooth.
If you enjoyed across the universe, which I did, which I did, then you'll enjoy this.
Don, what would you say to the audience?
What would you say to the entire audience?
It is here till June 15th.
If you got any chance at all to see this thing at music park.
I mean, music call a fair park.
Go for it.
Go down there.
See it is well worth it.
Jack.
Absolutely.
I mean, I agree with everything.
Tenfold.
And again, I cannot give enough kudos to Rebecca Mason.
Why go for coming through and in the pinch.
In a bit.
And that role and just killing it.
Absolutely.
The roof off the joint.
The winner takes it all.
We'll break your heart in half.
That's a tough song to deal with.
And she just went with this thing.
She crushed that song.
Well, yeah, but just she's who sticks out the most of it.
Considering what she had to do.
And when she found out that that she had to do it.
Stepping up in that way.
That short of notice.
And delivering.
I don't know.
It's been gone at the end.
You could tell how the way the audience reacted and the way she genuinely reacted.
How just she was beaming.
And she had every right to.
And the moment that we'll stick out with the stick out to me for a long time as
as the curtain was falling.
Yeah.
She's still looking under the curtain.
She got like she laid down.
It was waving under the, at the last possible second was still waving.
With a, with a huge grin on her face.
So if I are check this puppy out, it's well worth it.
If you live locally, make the effort.
All right, gentlemen.
Let's do the plugs.
Visit our website.
www.theclubhousepodcast.com where you can find out where we're going to be next.
You can find all of our written reviews and everything else.
Like our Facebook page.
Look up the clubhouse podcast.
But the word podcast on the end.
Or it's something completely different.
Follow this show on Twitter at clubhouse show.
You can follow me on Twitter.
I say stuff sometimes.
It's at yes.
That Rob Irvin that has spelled ERV.
I am at chat in P.
G69.
I'm at Fondongo.
And you can email me at Donna on at theclubhousepodcast.com.
We love doing live shows.
Well, we'll go just about anywhere.
We'll do your movie premiere.
We'll do your play premiere.
You know, I don't know if we'll do your kids birthday party.
But you never know.
You can email Donna to clubhousepodcast.com.
You can email me with questions, suggestions or just tell me to go pound sand.
You can email me at Rob at theclubhousepodcast.com.
Charlotte Parker is on Pinterest because we are morally obligated to say that.
And Jules Wormick is really jealous of her husband.
Our normal live show is every Sunday, night, seven Eastern, four Pacific.
We are your one stop shop for all things sports and entertainment.
So until the next time we talk to you or you just have to listen to us run our
Yaps for Don, for Chad, for the Empire.
I'm Rob, the clubhouse is closed.
Brittany Palmer, we're occurring to that thing.
I'm just saying it.
The preceding was a sooner or greater production.
Get it low, get it low!
Why? Because I have to.
See ya!