'Mamma Mia!' Closing: Broadway Hit Musical To End After 14 Years Amid Sagging Sales

After 14 years and more than 5,700 performances, the musical “Mamma Mia!” will close its engagement on Broadway Saturday. The final performance is scheduled to be held at 8 p.m. Sept. 12 at the Broadhurt Theatre in New York City, according to the show's website.

The musical, featuring the songs of the Swedish pop group ABBA, is closing because of sagging sales, according to the New York Post. While the show was popular among tourists, seats were often empty in the theater when tourists weren’t in town.

“It was a tough winter for everybody,” Judy Craymer, the show’s producer, told the Post. “And it’s become very competitive on Broadway.”

Having played in more than 400 cities and grossed over $2 billion worldwide, it is one of Broadway’s biggest success stories. The musical focuses on a woman and her mother preparing for a wedding in Greece while also trying to figure out which one of three men is the woman’s father.

When it closes, it will be the eighth-longest running show on Broadway, just behind “Oh! Calcutta!” and “A Chorus Line,” but ahead of “Beauty and the Beast” and “Rent.” The show had a devoted audience for years, with hit songs such as “Take a Chance On Me,” “Knowing Me, Knowing You” and “Dancing Queen.”

“Mamma Mia!” was nominated for multiple Tony Awards in 2002, including for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Orchestrations, but won none. The show originally premiered in 1999 at the West End Theatre in London, and inspired a musical movie adaptation in 2008 starring Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried and Pierce Brosnan.

When the show opened on Broadway, it was something of an anomaly. It featured a mostly female driven team, including a producer and director, and a female-driven leads, something still rare on Broadway.