Review Roundup: SCHOOL GIRLS; OR, THE AFRICAN MEAN GIRLS PLAY Opens on Broadway

Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play opened on Broadway September 28 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Directed by two-time Tony Award nominee Whitney White, the production stars Denée Benton, Patina Miller and Jasmine Amy Rogers. Read the reviews below.

Set at a boarding school in Ghana, the comedy follows Paulina, who has her sights set on a beauty pageant, until the arrival of a new student from America changes the competition. The cast also includes Lucia Aremu as Ama, Erin Morton as Nana, Nia Otchere-Sarfo as Gifty, Jordan Rice as Mercy and Heather Alicia Simms as Headmistress Francis. Benton plays Paulina Sarpong, Miller plays Eloise Amponsah and Rogers plays Ericka Boafo.

The production reunites Bioh and White, who previously collaborated on Jaja’s African Hair Braiding. School Girls premiered Off-Broadway at MCC in 2017 and has since received more than 80 regional productions and a UK premiere in 2023.

Helen Shaw, The New York Times: *CRITIC'S PICK* White directed Bioh’s Broadway debut (the Tony-nominated “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”), so she’s familiar with amplifying Bioh’s deft humor for a large house. Here, for the production that opened Monday at Manhattan Theater Club’s glittering Samuel J. Friedman Theater, White often moves her actors to the front of the stage, pointing them at the fourth wall instead of at one another. The punchlines therefore land like rimshots, though White’s frontal-attack strategy functions less well in later, sadder scenes.

Aramide Timubu, Variety: “School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play” is a joyous and gutting play centering the treasure of Black sisterhood, exceptionalism and the pain and anguish of putting your best foot forward and still falling short of someone much less qualified. It is an ever-timely examination of what it is to be a Black woman or girl in a world that constantly labels you as unworthy. With exceptional performances from the entire cast and homages to musical legends like Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson, Bioh and White present a reflection of the Black female experience in all of its dazzling idiosyncrasies, triumphs and pains.

Steven Suskin, New York Stage Review: It has become customary for Broadway nonprofits to spotlight important non-Broadway offerings from prior seasons, affording the plays and their authors the opportunity to reach a considerably wider audience. Most recently, Manhattan Theatre Club gave us Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day, a most provocative comedy from 2019. By entrusting it to an incisive director (Anna D. Shapiro) and assembling a top-tier cast, the relatively obscure play from a relatively unknown playwright proved a highlight of the season. MTC—now headed by artistic director Nicki Hunter and executive director Chris Jennings, following the lead of the long-serving Lynne Meadow and Barry Grove—has handily accomplished the same lofty achievement, and similarly excellent results, with Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls.

Frank Scheck, New York Stage Review: School girls, including the ones in Ghana, apparently haven’t gotten any less mean since Jocelyn Bioh’s raucous comedy received its world premiere in 2017 by off-Broadway’s MCC Theater. Now making its belated Broadway debut in a new production directed by Whitney White (Liberation, The Last Five Years) and featuring some genuine ringers in its cast, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play has lost none of its sharp comic bite.

Greg Evans, Deadline: The battle lines are drawn early and definitively in Jocelyn Bioh‘s School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play. The cruelties come fast and cut deep in this Ghana school lunch room where all the unspoken rules of adolescent pick-or-be-picked-upon are as strict as they are in high schools the world over. Or in other plays and TV shows the world over, whether we’re talking Heathers or Carrie or Jawbreaker. And since Stephen King didn’t write this one, we can be pretty sure there won’t blood, but gruesome playground injuries of a more psychic and soul-crushing variety are entirely on the table.

Austin Fimmano, New York Theatre Guide: School Girls is at its most fun when all the girls are trading Bioh’s snappy dialogue back and forth like an expert game of pattycake. In scenes like these, there’s a frenetic yet coordinated energy to White’s direction that feels like a celebration of pure, unadulterated girlhood. Together, the cast is an ensemble of consummate comedians with impeccable timing. But the slower, lower-energy scenes hit just as hard. Love and pride for Ghana is something all the characters feel deeply. But it’s how to represent Ghana on the world stage — or rather, whose skin color is best to do so — that leads to the ultimate heartbreak of this story.

Emily Chackerian, 1 Minute Critic: What begins as a teen comedy swiftly transforms into a sly commentary on colorism. Though you wish to spend longer with the characters, the time Bioh affords us is worthwhile. The ensemble is stellar, with Benton and Rogers as the standouts; Benton beautifully portrays Paulina’s viciousness and vulnerability. Rogers (who burst onto Broadway two seasons ago in the title role in Boop!) is instantly likable. The full cast also gets a chance to show off their comedy chops during a hysterical show choir scene that ends with Rogers singing the house down.

Brian Scott Lipton, Cititour: Admittedly, Bioh’s play peters out with a bit of a fizzle around 90 minutes; in some ways, it’s hard to determine if the show is too short or too long. Still, every element of this top-of-its-class production has combined to make the production a true crowd-pleaser. And that’s no mean feat!

Thom Geier, Culture Sauce: As directed by Whitney White, School Girls sprays a thin mist of social commentary over its familiar genre-based story. But where the production shines is in the comedic set pieces, including a hilariously off-kilter rendition of a Whitney Houston ballad that allows each of the schoolgirls a moment to shine. A special shout-out to the winsome Erin Morton, who played a similarly bullied and zaftig high schooler in the recent Heathers revival. Unlike Paulina, Bioh generously shares the load of punchlines and emotional connection among the talented ensemble.

Juan A. Ramirez, The Guardian: After its 2017 premiere off-Broadway, School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play transferred to Los Angeles, was remounted in New York the following year, and has since been staged in over 75 theaters across the US, plus a successful run in London. It’s easy to see why – Jocelyn Bioh’s one-act comedy has a familiar structure, richly detailed characters, and an onslaught of delicious barbs. Plus it has the good sense of an 80-minute runtime.

Joey Sims, Theatrely: Ericka’s arrival sets off a chaotic chain of events by turns uproariously funny, stingingly painful and, for anyone who lived through teenage bullying, cruelly familiar. Yet Bioh always keeps her tone two or three notches above naturalism, allowing the audience guilt-free enjoyment in reliving all these excruciating memories. It’s a tricky balance, one that White negotiates expertly for this high-energy Broadway revival.

Robert Hofler, The Wrap: The cat fights that ensue among these characters go far beyond anything that takes place in Clare Boothe Luce’s “The Women.” Unfortunately, these nasty encounters in “School Girls” are also far less witty. At times, Bioh’s comedy isn’t just about teenagers; it appears to have been written by teenagers.

Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune: “School Girls” invites comparison with “John Proctor is the Villain,” another recent Broadway play set in a classroom, but this new one not only is a celebration of the importance of great teachers; it celebrates girlhood in all its complexity while also leaving you feeling optimistic about the world. That’s even though the plot has something in common with Tina Fey’s “Mean Girls,” a potent two words that also make it into the title (lamentably, in my view).

Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater: The Broadway version has a longer running time, a more elaborate set and extravagant costume design, and a starrier cast than the original Off-Broadway production. But it also somehow feels slighter than it did when I saw it in 2017. I don’t think this has anything to do with it being swallowed up in a Broadway house more than twice the size of the original venue. It is more likely because Jocelyn Bioh has in the decade since written such acclaimed plays as “ “Merry Wives”,’ the prize-winning adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy that reopened the Delacorte in 2021, and especially“Jaja’s African Hair Salon,” the 2024 Tony-nominated play that brought us into the swirling world of struggling West African immigrants in Harlem. “Jaja” is also a comedy, but with more complexity and higher stakes, setting up expectations that this earlier play doesn’t quite meet.

Adam Feldman, Time Out New York: Back to school! And back, as it happens, to Jocelyn Bioh’s vibrant School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, which was such a hit in its original 2017 run at Off Broadway’s Lucille Lortel Theatre that it returned for an encore engagement the following year. Since then, the show has become a regional-theater favorite; now, Manhattan Theatre Club, or MTC—not to be confused with MCC Theater, which mounted the show in 2017—has brought this Black comedy to the Great White Way in an all-new version directed by Whitney White, who also worked with Bioh on MTC’s 2023 production of Jaja’s African Hair Braiding. It’s a pleasure to be reunited with flawed, fractious but ultimately endearing classmates of this crowd-pleasing play.

Average Rating: 84.7%