#BroadwayatSea: Where Mamma Mia Was Pretty Badass (No, Really)

Sometimes you have these moments where you’re just like “What is my life?”

Sometimes they happen when you’re in the office, on an average Monday, and you catch your colleague answering the phone with “City morgue, you kill em, we chill em…” when, you know, you work at a direct marketing agency.

Other times, they happen when you’re sitting in a theater, glass of altogether decent champagne in hand — okay, in a cup-holder specially designed for stemmed glasses — about to see Mamma Mia and you feel the entire theater rock beneath you and you remember that holy shit, you are on a fucking boat. A cruise ship, actually. The Quantum of the Seas to be exact. Where there is seriously a full production of Mamma Mia happening, well, possibly as we speak.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that Lucky and I got to take a quick cruise to nowhere on the new Royal Caribbean ship a few weeks ago, as a part of their “Big Apple Launch” and while aboard we obviously had to carve time into our busy schedule of drinking/riding bumper cars/gambling/drinking some more for some Broadway at Sea. Because honestly, who would we be if we skipped out on the chance to see some cute boys sing and dance (shirtless) when it was basically smacking us in the face? (Answer: We don’t even know.)

If I’m honest, neither one of us had terribly great expectations for Mamma Mia. It’s not really our show, to begin with. And like… how good could it be on a cruise ship, really?

The answer to that is highly fucking excellent, it turns out. Color us shocked.

Everything was just so… tight. On point. Firing on all cylinders.

I don’t know you guys. Mamma Mia is always Mamma Mia. It looks a bit out of date, these days. And the sound design is like… from outer-space. Sometimes there’s literally no logical reason for anything that’s happening on stage.

But the cast was excellent. I have literally NEVER seen the dancing so good. And everything just felt… fresher than it’s ever been when I’ve seen in on Broadway. Maybe it’s because the cast just got out of tech five seconds ago. Maybe it’s because I was drinking my champagne in a flute like a big girl and not a sippy cup, I don’t know. And the thing is, I don’t care. That shit was damn fun. And totally worth three hours of my seafaring life.

Plus, the fun thing about theater at sea is like… the cast is right there. All the time. They live on the boat with you. So, if you’re like me, and you have a crush on the adorable boy who plays Pepper, you can chase him through the casino to chat him up. (If you’re me, you can also fail miserably.) And I probably shouldn’t encourage that kind of behavior but WHATEVER. I do what I want! Especially when it concerns cute theater boys.