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.
'Mean Girls,' on the other hand, proves to be a wishy-washy, pointless adaptation of the smart and sassy 2004 film, which was written by Tina Fey and contains performances by Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, Lizzy Caplan and Fey. The primary problem is that the songs (music by Jeff Richmond, lyrics by Nell Benjamin) are underwhelming and awkwardly inserted into the dialogue. As if trying to compensate, the production (staged by Casey Nicholaw, 'The Book of Mormon') pulsates with high energy and hyperkinetic movement, as seen in everything from the broad-style performances to the shifting digital projections and all-out dance choreography.
All of Fey's long-form shows have unfolded at rapid paces and 'Mean Girls' is no exception. It's packed with body-twisting and often witty choreography from Nicholaw, whose show, with a set by Scott Pask, is so stocked with stimulation (verbal, physical, digital) that it rests not for a second, a choice that does not help Henningsen really change, given that Richmond's score, as energetic and funny as everything else here, is hardly centered on self-reflective ballads. But that likely will delight much of the audience who'll be trying to figure out why that dance number had boys in drag (don't ask me) and that one had that Easter egg and so on. At the Saturday matinee I saw, the balcony was having so much whoop-it-up fun, I was worried about someone's tucked-away phone falling and smacking me on my balding pate.
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