Mamma Mia! This year’s highly anticipated spring musical is finally here!  I sat down with the leading lady herself, Carolina Kirkpatrick, to find out more about her experience with the show.

Carolina first auditioned for the role of Donna because of the connection she felt to the character, “There are a lot of good roles in Mamma Mia, but Donna was my favorite because I personally connect with her and I love her music.” That led me to ask what she admires in Donna, and what she doesn’t admire so much, “I love her free spirit and her courage, and how she’s unafraid to do what she wants and doesn’t care what people think about her. But she’s very hard headed, and she doesn’t always listen to the people around her when she probably should.”

She expressed her admiration for the hard work everyone has been putting towards making the show great, “Every day I’m just so happy to be there, I love everyone there so much, but it is very long we definitely work very hard and we work many hours but it is worth it and I am very excited to see how it turns out. We’re doing a lot of choreography, so get ready to see our dancing!” Carolina shared her excitement for the newly modified stage, which has had piers built off of it for the show, “It is more fun because you get to have a little bit more interaction with the audience, and we get to freak them out during “Under Attack”, but also like dance with them during “Dancing Queen” and “Waterloo”, it’s fun.”

Finally, since it is Carolina’s very first year at Heritage, I asked her favorite part of the entire experience of Mamma Mia! so far, “Getting to perform the music and dancing around with a bunch of people that I love!”