From the mind of Tina Fey, MEAN GIRLS is a ferociously funny musical about the wild dangers of high school. From an award-winning creative team, including book-writer Fey, director Casey Nicholaw, composer Jeff Richmond, lyricist Nell Benjamin, experience the iconic humor in a new, unimaginable way.
Cady Heron may have grown up in African, but nothing prepared her for the vicious predators of her high school hallways. By taking on Regina George, the queen bee of the terrifying clique known as The Plastics, Cady learns that being popular is not the same as being loved.
MEAN GIRLS gets to the hilarious heart of what it means to be a true friend, a worthy nemesis, and above all, a human being.
Fey doesn't venture far from the outline of the original movie, in which new girl Cady (Erika Henningsen) falls in with a trio of divas led by queen bee Regina (Taylor Louderman), betraying herself and her other friends in the process. The musical numbers (by Fey's husband Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin) don't grow organically out of the story or characters, so much as feel padded on. (Talk about padding -- the movie was 97 minutes, this show runs a full hour longer.)
In setting this 'cautionary tale' to music, Fey and lyricist Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde) have more latitude to explore the internal lives of these now-iconic characters. Though Henningsen's Cady is more broadly naive than the one originated by Lindsay Lohan, her earnest vocals bring a quality of sweetness to numbers like 'Stupid In Love' - in which Cady professes her equal devotion to math and her new crush Aaron Samuels (Kyle Selig). Henningsen finds her character's edge by her fifth number, 'Apex Predator' - a rocking tribute to Regina's top-of-the-food-chain status, and the reveal of Cady's primal desire to be popular. 'What's Wrong With Me?' shows poor Gretchen Wieners - played with a perfect mix of comic anxiety and melancholy by Ashley Park - in a rare moment of reflection: 'Where is my mind? Where does it end? Maybe I need to find a better friend?'
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