In the final moments of Grand Rapids Ballet’s MOVEMEDIA: Handmade, dancers onstage transform into an underwater human merry go round. With linked arms, an outer circle moves clockwise, while an inner circle moves in the opposite direction in Nicolas Blanc’s world premiere “Aquatic Hypoxia.”

For 20 years, Mamma Mia! has been unavailable to local theater companies. But the time has come for troupes like Grand Rapids Civic Theatre to bring the hit musical to the stage with showstopping tunes, creative sets and lots of talent.

For Jake and Pete Twitchell, it’s the 10-year anniversary of their father’s tragic death in a 1952 mining accident. The Pickaway Coal Company’s South Mountain in rural West Virginia — locally nicknamed “The Burnt Part” — is where the death of those four miners occurred, three of whom left behind children.

It’s four songs into Anastasia before audiences are really introduced to Anya (Lila Coogan) the show’s female lead. Up until that point, a lot of years go by, and quickly too, jumping from 1906 to 1917 to our final destination, 1927.