(upbeat dance music)
- Welcome to another Broadway Profiles Show Spotlight.
I'm your host, Tamsen Fadal.
The iconic film "Mean Girls"
comes to life on the Broadway stage,
with a totally fetch cast, incredible songs, and more.
And now the national tour is headed your way.
For 16 years and counting,
"Mean Girls" has been an enduring part
of pop culture.
Of course, the musical is based
on the hit movie that helped define a generation.
Starring Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, and Tina Fey
who also wrote the book for "Mean Girls the Musical".
- It's interesting, when we first said
we were going to do it everyone's said
'well are you going to update it?
You have to do social media,
you have to do so much social media.'
And then I actually talked to some teenagers,
we had brought early in the rehearsal period,
I brought some young women to see the show and
and they were kind of like, 'By the way, like
don't think you have to do a ton
of social media for us to get it.
Like we get it.'
♪ A revenge party ♪
♪ A party that ends ♪
♪ With somebody crushed and alone ♪
- They want me to have lunch with them all week
(laughter)
♪ With your two best friends ♪
♪ It's like a party with revenge, ♪
♪ It's what we're throwing. ♪
- It's so fetch!
- [Tamsen Fadal] The show is genuinely laugh out loud funny,
and guaranteed to bring audiences
to their feet each and every night.
The Broadway production nominated
for a dozen Tony Awards in 2018
including Best Musical.
The show also won Broadway.com's
Audience Choice Award.
- You can't sit with us.
- And one of the amazing highlights of the tour
is singer-songwriter, Mariah Rose Faith.
She plays the queen bee, Regina George.
Of course, Regina George is a massive deal.
She and her two besties make up The Plastics
and yeah they still wear pink every Wednesday.
You might recognize Mariah from the musical theater company
Team Starkid on YouTube.
In fact, that's how she landed this starring role.
It's such an iconic film, "Mean Girls,"
And so I feel like you've got the audience
already so excited, right?
Because they kind of know what to expect.
Though, the musical and the stage performance,
I think it just takes it to another level really.
- Oh yeah, absolutely.
It's always crazy stepping into a role
that people know so well, like you said.
But there is also that thrill of it, too,
because people are so eager.
These are some of their favorite characters
that they've grown up with.
And sometimes now, like we have parents who grew
up with these characters who are taking their kids
which is really cool and exciting.
So you have this generational thing.
But there's also an expectation
on yourself to make sure that you can deliver.
I play Regina George, who is this like quintessential
in the dictionary '"mean girl," you know
that is who you imagine,
which was wild for me because
I'm so the Janice in real life
like the quirky art freak weirdo.
But it's great to be someone
that you're not and step into that.
And for us, like our entrance is
on like this table or these doors completely open wide.
And there we are like power stance ready go.
And every single night I get to do that
with like my two best friends Megan and Jonalyn,
who are the other Plastics.
And we're just like this awesome trio, this awesome team.
So it, it lifts you up.
It reminds you that what you're doing
is not only just awesome for you
but awesome for the two, three thousand
people that get to watch you.
And I mean, it was a joy, it's a joy every single night.
- And how do you relate to your character?
Because you're so unlike your character.
- Yeah, that was a journey.
Thank God for our creative team.
They really helped me feel
okay
with being mean
and my own version of that.
And helped me understand in what world I could have
been that way, because it was hard for me to see that.
I'm also someone who like loves cracking a joke.
I love comedy.
That's where I feel like my center is most of the time.
So I also kind of designed her to be like,
Oh, I'm not being mean.
I'm just being funny.
And that's her way to justify all the hurt that she's doing.
It's like, it's just a joke.
You can't take a joke.
So that helped me to find that.
But of course, like it's hard.
It's hard being mean to the people that you love
every single night.
But thank God we have those moments backstage
and crossing where you just can touch someone
on the shoulder and be like, 'Hey, love you,
You're killing it out there.'
- I feel like because you have different generations
coming together to see this.
I think that's super special.
Especially when you're traveling across the country.
What has that been like?
- It's always funny because whatever city you're in
one city might really love a joke,
and the next city is like, 'I don't really get it.'
That's usually what I find to be the difference is
like certain points when people laugh
but we're there for at least a week.
So on that first day we kind of go like, Oh, okay.
They love this.
This is kind of odd for them.
Let's focus on this.
Traveling in general, I mean, it's been such a privilege.
I didn't travel most of the country prior to tour.
So this has been amazing for me.
♪ Here's my secret strategy, ♪
♪ It always works because ♪
♪ the world doesn't end. ♪
♪ It just feels like it does. ♪
♪ So raise your right finger ♪
♪ And solemnly swear ♪
♪ whatever they say about me ♪
♪ I don't care ♪
- [Tamsen Fadal] Another one
of the unbelievable performances
in the "Mean Girls" tour comes from Mary Kate Morrissey.
She's taking on the role of Janice.
She stopped by the Broadway.com studios to
perform her showstopping solo.
"I'd Rather Be Me."
♪ I'd rather be me ♪
♪ Than be with you ♪
- We all know the "Mean Girls" story is hysterical
but also the stage production is visually spectacular.
And the songs, of course, are genuine crowd-pleasers.
And that's all thanks to the all-star creative team.
We mentioned the story is written
by the iconic Tina Fey
the music penned by her husband, Jeff Richmond,
with lyrics by Nell Benjamin
and the show was directed and choreographed
by one of the most celebrated names in the business,
Casey Nicholaw.
"Mean Girls" in particular is interesting to me
because we see a lot of movies to musicals
but now we're seeing movies to musicals,
back to movies again, which I think is kind of interesting
because it's also bringing those crowds back
and seeing those, those stories told in a different way.
- You get to see these characters fleshed out
you get to actually hear them sing
and you get to get deeper into who they are
because they're singing.
And we get to expand on that
and decide the places that we would expand on.
Like how would Damien sing?
What would Janice's voice be?
and we all work together to figure that out, you know
and Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin, you know
did such a great job with the score and with, with really
you know, deepening the characters with the music.
- I mean, I really, I, the score is just incredible
and you know, Tina Fey getting involved and just
you hear her voice, you just hear her voice
in that, in that story.
Talk a little bit about that and working with her.
- She is so quick in how she talks and how she writes
and you know, that kind of humor that's like her trademark.
It was tough for me, staging wise to figure out
exactly how we were going to accomplish that
which is why we use projections in the show.
So everything moves quickly, you know,
you could never like stop to wait for a scene change.
She'll want to be in four locations
in two pages and you can't really
you can't go that many places and build
that many steps and have it be economically feasible.
And also too, we're also using the screens for the comedy.
This is really about getting laughs
getting Tina's laughs that are in the script
and then also getting laughs on their own with the screen.
- Well, let's talk a little bit about the touring shows
because you know, we talk about Broadway all the time
but touring shows across the country.
If people don't realize it, are just incredible.
- The tours are fantastic.
And it's so much fun for us to go see a tour
because we see audiences responding with as much enthusiasm
as people on opening nights in New York
because they're seeing it for the first time.
It's really cool, really exciting.
You know, it feels like, okay, I'm going into another city
to go see another production of the show.
And then I get those chills
and thrills all over again by seeing it.
- Once again, "Mean Girls the Musical" is headed your way.
For more information on the national tour
visit meangirlsontour.com.
Until next time I'm Tamsen Fidel,
And this is the Broadway Profiles Show Spotlight.
(upbeat dance music)