Jim Newman and Carly Sakolove unpack a fan-favorite scene in 'Mamma Mia!' on Broadway

As Bill and Rosie in the hit ABBA musical's first New York City revival, the actors get to perform "Take a Chance on Me," a silly yet sexy showstopper.

Summary

• Jim Newman and Carly Sakolove play Bill and Rosie in Mamma Mia! on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre
• They discuss performing the fan-favorite duet "Take a Chance on Me" and the audience's response
• The actors have been with the Mamma Mia! national tour since 2023 and talk about how building an offstage rapport shaped their onstage chemistry

If you've got no place to go when you're feeling down, that's why Mamma Mia! is back in town. Hopefully you read that to the tune of ABBA's "Take a Chance on Me." If you've seen any iteration of Mamma Mia! — be it the movie, the original Broadway production that ran 14 years, or the current revival at the Winter Garden Theatre through February 1 — you'll know the song is a fan favorite, partly because the ABBA musical has turned it into a comedic gold mine.

"There's laughs before the song even starts!" said actor Jim Newman, who performs "Take a Chance" on Broadway with Carly Sakolove. A brief departure from the show's main plot — bride-to-be Sophie invites her three possible dads to her wedding without telling her mom, Donna — the number sees maybe-dad Bill and Donna's friend Rosie give in to their mutual attraction in one of the family show's more PG-13 moments.

That's actually where the comedy comes in: As they sing, Bill and Rosie romp around a chapel (of all places) in a slapstick cat-and-mouse game, eventually falling all over each other and perhaps losing a shirt button or two in the process. The scene is silly, sexy, and, after all that running around, undoubtedly sweaty — and to be all three at once is somewhat unique to the Broadway version.

"I have seen, and I have done, the scene completely unsexy — just very funny, [where we] kiss and make a face or whatever," said Sakolove, who has played Rosie in three other Mamma Mia! productions since 2012. "But [Jim and I] want to play the truth because that's just where we're at in our careers. We're not trying to just get a laugh, but we do."

If done right, Newman added, the lovers' ultimate surrender feels inevitable, the culmination of "little hints of flirting throughout the show." (Example: Not long before "Take a Chance," adventurer Bill tells Rosie, a celebrity chef, that he always carries her cookbook with him. She playfully replies, "Well, then you know how to pepper my snapper.")

"We want the audience to pull for us to get together," he continued. To him, the sexiness is actually key to the scene, as it shows Bill and Rosie's relationship is consensual even though he runs from her at first. "He obviously wants it because he's flirting with her. They go fishing together. They have these jokes."

While Sakolove had plenty of experience with Rosie to draw on, Newman had never even seen Mamma Mia! before playing Bill. (Conversely, Sakolove is a Broadway first-timer, while Newman made his debut in the '90s.) Luckily, the pair connected "instantly," they agreed, and have had nearly two years to strengthen both their offstage and onstage rapport from there. This Mamma Mia! Broadway revival is actually an extended stop on the show's U.S. tour, which Sakolove and Newman joined in 2023.

"We did have all that time on the road to fine-tune and just become friends," Sakolove said. In working with Newman, she came to admire his interpretation of Bill: "Even though he's a strong cowboy and super confident, he has this boyish sweetness and sincerity."

Newman, in turn, praised Sakolove's go-for-broke comedic chops and the trust among the whole cast. "That's not always the case," he said. "Sometimes you have to act over something you're not comfortable doing with someone, and I don't find that in this cast at all. Everybody's game."

It's the audience that remains the most unpredictable variable, the actors acknowledged. "I rip my glasses off and splat against the the door before I before I start singing 'Take a Chance,' and sometimes they'll howl, [and] I have to act with no lines for 10 minutes," Sakolove said. "And sometimes it's crickets."

Responses have varied by city, but even in NYC, there's the occasional quiet crowd — perhaps they're nervous to laugh at Bill and Rosie's flirtations next to, say, their family members. But by the end of "Take a Chance," when the couple finally shares a triumphant kiss?

"They scream like teenagers," Newman said, and that energy fuels both him and Sakolove. "At the end [of the show], we're arm in arm, and to feel that much joy, and you know you gave them that [...] you do not take that for granted."

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Photo credit: Mamma Mia! on Broadway. (Photos by Joan Marcus)