Clique Here
From left, Ashley Park, Kate Rockwell, Taylor Louderman and Erika Henningsen in "Mean Girls: The Musical" at the August Wilson Theater.
TINA FEY may never make a sequel to the movie "Mean Girls," she says, because she couldn't afford the original cast. "Their quotes are all too high now,” Fey told Entertainment Tonight not long ago. “They’re, like, Oscar nominees and stuff.” But she has turned her hit into a Broadway musical. Opening night: April 8, 2018.
If you were a teenager in 2004, that's all you need to know. Even at the pre-Broadway run in Washington DC last fall, young audience members were turning up in costume (e.g., the saucy Santa outfits from "Jingle Bell Rock"). If you were not a teenager in 2004 (and you still care), here's a combination of background and update.
Out of Africa
Lindsay Lohan in the 2004 film "Mean Girls," as a naive teenager going to school for the first time.
What was the story with the "Mean Girls" movie, which everybody makes such a fuss about? (a) "I never saw it." (b) "I don't remember it." (c) "I disdain it."
Our protagonist: Sweet, innocent 16-year-old Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) has been living somewhere in Africa with her American zoologist parents and has been home schooled until now. The first time she sees the inside of a Midwestern American high school cafeteria, its denizens remind her of the wild beasts back on the savanna, battling, stalking, baring their fangs and claws -- and those first impressions turn out to be all too insightful.
She meets a couple of nice kids (artsy girl, gay boy -- because) but is soon drawn into the toxic orbit of the Plastics, a three-girl clique led by Regina George (Rachel McAdams), who are collectively too pretty, popular, well dressed and confident for their own good. They adopt Cady as one of their own, but everybody treats everybody else horribly (lies, betrayals and, God help us all, diet sabotage).
Lohan was a skilled enough actress to bring some nuance to Cady's seduction, her varying levels of awareness and the complicated rationalizations that go into wanting to be loved by the people you hate.
There's a happy, healthy, be-nice-to-one-another moral at the end.
I'm a Senior
Rachel McAdams, then 25, as the tyrannical Regina in the "Mean Girls" movie.
Were any of these young women actual teenagers?
A couple. When "Mean Girls" opened in movie theaters in April 2004, Lohan was 17, Amanda Seyfried was 18, Lacey Chabert was 21 and Rachel McAdams was an elderly 25. The Broadway stars are practically grandmothers: Erika Henningsen, who plays Cody, is 25. Taylor Louderman, who plays Regina, the queen of the Plastics, is 27. The other Plastics are portrayed by Ashley Park, 26, and Kate Rockwell, 33.
So, other than adding songs and choreography, what's different about the musical version?
For one thing, it's had a tech update.
Look carefully at the film. Do you see a single cellphone or hear even a passing reference to Facebook (maybe because Mark Zuckerberg launched it in early 2004, while the film was in post-production) or any other form of social media? In the screen version, the students had to make do with the Burn Book, a scrapbook decorated with photos and nasty comments about the people they didn't like (which was pretty much everyone). Onstage at the August Wilson, the internet age and social media are as much a part of everyday high school life as insecurity and lust.
Broadway Cady
Erika Henningsen is Cady Heron (the Lindsay Lohan role) in the musical.
There are also mentions of Donald Trump, bullying, tampering and the #metoo movement. And all the movie references to Cady's life in Africa -- yes, just big, old, amorphous, unknowable Africa -- now specify that she grew up in Kenya.
Who's the new Lindsay Lohan?
Cady is played by Erika Henningsen, a 2014 University of Michigan graduate who grew up in Northern California and already has a history of playing the sweet, sympathetic type. She holds the distinction, it's said, of being the youngest actress ever to play Fantine in "Les Misérables" on Broadway -- Fantine being the pathetic, tubercular single mom and factory worker turned prostitute. In a New York Philharmonic production of "Show Boat" that was on PBS in 2015, she was Kim Ravanel, the angelic offspring of a classic n'eer-do-well. In real life, her sing-in-the-shower number, she says, is "Journey to the Past," the wistful title character's Act I closer from "Anastasia."
And who's our Regina, the meanest of the mean?
Vivat Regina!
Taylor Louderman plays Regina, undisputed leader of the Plastics.
The Broadway Regina (played deliciously by McAdams in the movie) is Taylor Louderman, a nice girl from Bourbon, Mo. (a tiny town near St. Louis) who has been on Broadway before. She recently played Lauren, the shoe-factory worker, a role originated by Annaleigh Ashford, in "Kinky Boots." In "Bring It On," the 2012 musical, she starred as a championship cheerleader who gets transferred to a very demographically different neighborhood and makes the best of it.
The role of Regina is a stretch. "I never played the bad guy before," she told Women's Wear Daily earlier this year, admitting that while she'd learned a lot about the complexities of female relationships during her own high school years, she was "still reflecting" on it.
What's the weird Michigan connection?
Four young women have lead roles in "Mean Girls," and strangely enough, three of them -- Heningsen, Louderman and Park -- are recent University of Michigan alumnae. This is such a sensitive subject that the show's publicists declined to let Press Nights interview the (almost certainly guiltless) casting people about it. "Some call it the 'Michigan mafia,' " The Detroit News wrote in 2015. Michigan is one of the relatively few schools where you can get a B.F.A. in musical theater. Not drama, not theater, not music, not dance -- musical theater. And the Senior Showcase doesn't hurt; every year, the department brings all the graduating seniors to New York for what's described as "a special performance before Broadway insiders." The department chairman told The News, "About half the kids sign with agents."
Be Still, My Heart
Kyle Selig, with Heningsen, plays Cady's favorite part of math class. Too bad he used to date Regina.
What are the critics saying?
The New York critics haven't been allowed to weigh in officially yet, as this article is posted on the eve of April 1, 2018 (one week before opening night). But the ones who saw it at the National Theater in Washington were generally enthusiastic.
In The Washington Post, Peter Marks called it, in part, "a jolt of super-energized adolescent hyper-viciousness with a snazzy video screenscape." Paul Harris of Variety called it delightful, energetic and "a crowd pleaser."
Marks had some suggestions for improvement, including putting a little more melodic variety into the score. So did Michael Riedel, the New York Post theater columnist (just before he left The Post), who, like Marks, suggested: Cady needs an 11 o'clock number.
Since Washington, what have they changed?
"We are not commenting on changes from D.C. at this time," a spokesman said. Twice. Casey Nicholaw, the director, was more forthcoming. “We ripped the show completely apart from D.C.,” he told Laura Collins-Hughes in The New York Times. There are, among other things, five new songs.
Creators in Black
From left, Nell Benjamin (lyrics), Jeff Richmond (music), Tina Fey (book) and Casey Nicholaw (director and choreographer).
Besides Tina Fey, who's involved backstage?
It's an impressive bunch. The music is by Jeff Richmond, an Emmy-winning composer for network series including "30 Rock," who also happens to be married to Fey. The lyrics are by Nell Benjamin, who did "Legally Blonde: The Musical" for Broadway in 2007. The director and choreographer is Nicholaw, whose credits include "The Book of Mormon," which is expected to run until the year 2099. (Rough estimate.)
So Tina must be very proud of her brainchild?
Almost certainly. But let's not forget Rosalind Wiseman, a Washington DC educator who wrote "Queen Bees and Wannabes," the 2002 book on which Fey based her screenplay. The subtitle seems to have changed over the years, but one version is "Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boys, and the New Realities of the Girl World."
Mall of the Wild
Scenic design is by Scott Pask, whose most recent Tony was for "The Book of Mormon." Both shows have an Africa connection.
How familiar will the show be to fans of the movie?
Very familiar. And with elaboration on the familiar. Take the finest moment of dear, dumb Karen (Rockwell) in the scene illustrating the ways Halloween is an opportunity for teenage girls to dress, with societal sanction, like $20 streetwalkers. Karen's line "Duh, I'm a mouse" -- when she's asked what her costume represents -- is now a whole musical number. And in case anyone needs help understanding the full egotistical energy of Louderman's character, she makes her entrance singing, "I'm Regina George, and I'm a Massive Deal."
Think Plastics
From left, Rockwell, Louderman and Park.
Will all my favorite lines from the movie still be there?
Alas, no. According to the show's public relations firm, you will not hear Karen explain her psychic gift with "It's like I have ESPN." No one in a car will call out "Get in, loser." Louderman recently expressed disappointment that her favorite movie line, "Boo, you whore!," did not make the cut. But in a sort of group-therapy scene that you have to see twice to appreciate fully, an outraged student will announce, "She doesn't even go here."
Complicit
Grey Henson, who plays Damian, with Henningsen. Who(m) is Cady really loyal to?
How will "Mean Girls" make me a better person?
Louderman put it nicely in her WWD interview. "The show has sort of a moral opportunity to teach young women -- maybe sometimes grown women and men, for that matter -- that we're safer and happier when we look out for one another, even if we may have differences."
Grey Henson, who plays the nice-guy sidekick Damian, was pithier. When Broadway.com asked him about the show's message, he said, "It's about not being a dick."
"Mean Girls: The Musical," August Wilson Theater, 245 West 52nd Street; meangirlsonbroadway.com. Opening night: April 8, 2018. Began previews on March 12.