It has just been officially announced that Dee Hoty will replace departing star Louise Pitre in the Broadway production of Mamma Mia! this fall. Hoty’s first performance in the lead role of Donna will be on Wednesday, October 22.
In addition to her Tony-nominated work in The Will Rogers Follies, The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, and Footloose, Hoty has appeared on Broadway in Shakespeare’s Cabaret, The Five O’Clock Girl, Me and My Girl, and City of Angels. She was also acclaimed for her performance as Phyllis in the Paper Mill Playhouse production of Sondheim’s Follies. Hoty has been playing Donna on the national tour of Mamma Mia! for two years, having assumed the part when Pitre left the tour to head the Broadway company.
In his review of Mamma Mia! for TheaterMania, David Finkle wrote: “Mamma Mia! is what Your Hit Parade might have been if the creators had decided that, rather than presenting a series of unrelated skits, they’d slot all the week’s chart-toppers into one storyline….The show is pleasing as it passes and it certainly features a generous swath of songs that caught the world’s fancy during the ’70s and ’80s.”