Mix a fluffy story with some ABBA songs and you get? A big hit
By Bob Keefer
The Register-Guard
Published: Sunday, January 8, 2006

Laurie Wells, you might say, has a thing for older women.

No, not that kind of thing. The actress and singer has been playing older parts ever since she was a girl growing up in Orange County, Calif.

On Tuesday, the 30-year-old will become Donna Sheridan, the mother of the bride in a traveling production of ''Mamma Mia!'' the hit Broadway show based on the music of ABBA.

A 30-year-old mother of the bride?

''I am a very young Donna,'' Wells admits. ''But I have been lying about my age since I was 11. When I was 16, I was saying I was 24. I have a low, rich voice when I sing. You'll see. I think you're going to buy it.''
Until two weeks ago, Wells was a member of the chorus and the understudy for the lead role. Then Lauren Mufson, who was playing Donna on tour, was called to the Broadway production. So Wells got tapped for the lead.

''This was a complete surprise,'' she said. ''They called me and said, `Do you want to take over?' Well, of course!''

Wells performed in the first national tour of ''Swing!'' and has worked off-Broadway and in regional theatre. She got her start in the music business as a junior in high school, in those days when she was 16 and telling people she was 24.

Wells showed up for an audition in Los Angeles and got hired to sing backup at Opryland, the now defunct amusement park at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn.

She didn't tell her parents until she had accepted the job, found an apartment and enrolled herself in high school in Tennessee.

''They freaked out,'' she said. ''But they said, `Go.' ''

She spent two years in Nashville. At the time, she says, she hated country music, so one night when a then-little-known singer named Faith Hill sat down in the living room of Wells' apartment and began to play guitar, Wells excused herself and headed for bed.

''Now I'm obsessed with country music,'' she says. ''I listen to it all the time.''

Wells also likes the '80s sound of ABBA, which she says draws audiences of mostly middle-aged women to the traveling show.

''The melodies are really catching,'' she said. ''The lyrics are great, and everybody knows some of this stuff. The music is played on every elevator. And because the lyrics are so good people can really relate. Even my dad.''

"Mamma Mia!" was written by Catherine Johnson, who wove together a lighter than air story from ABBA's already popular songs.

The tale unfolds on a tiny Greek island. On the eve of her wedding, a daughter tries to find the identity of her father, and meets three men from her mother's past.

Songs in the show include "Dancing Queen," "The Winner Takes It All," "Money, Money, Money" and "Take a Chance on Me."

Sophie Sheridan, Donna's daughter, is played by Bekah Nutt. Robert Adelman Hancock plays her fiance, Sky. Donna's best friends and former back-up band, Rosie and Tanya, are played by Laura Ware and Lisa Mandel, who reunite on the island for Sophie's wedding.

Thirteen separate productions of ''Mamma Mia!'' are currently running worldwide, including three tours.
The show has grossed more than $1 billion and has been seen by 20 million people.