Mean Girls musical: Tina Fey is finally making ‘fetch’ happen

It may be 14 years since Tina Fey’s cult-favourite hit the big screen, but Gretchen Wieners is still trying to make fetch happen and Aaron Samuels is still an AP Calculus hottie. But in 2018, the jokes are elevated by the existence of Snapchat and the Trump era.

Just like the 2004 film Mean Girls, the musical adaptation follows Cady Heron’s (Erika Henningsen) journey from homeschooled student in Kenya to popular girl at North Shore High. In Kenya, Cady dreams of learning “skateboarding, rapping and getting a Starbucks Venti Chai,” but when she arrives at North Shore High she is quickly thrust into the social hierarchy of high school. “Art freaks” Janis Sarkisian (Barrett Wilbert Weed) and Damian Hubbard (Grey Henson) immediately take Cady under their wing and convince her to spy on The Plastics - the three most popular girls in school. But once she gets integrated into their circle, Cady becomes a Plastic herself: self-absorbed, social-climbing and conniving just like the other three. What follows is a path to redemption coupled with unwavering humour.

At two and a half hours long, Mean Girls not only pulled out some of the best lines of the movie (“I’m a pusher, Cady”) or (“You’re like really pretty”), but also incorporated new plot lines like Aaron using a fake address to go to North Shore High and ending up expelled from school. But what the play did that the movie didn’t is give the supporting roles more stage-time, something that the caveat of song helped solve. Although some plot lines have shifted, the audience gets to learn more about all of the characters and their interests (i.e. Damian is George Michael-obsessed). Janis and Damian take on lead roles as they narrate the “cautionary tale” of how Cady transforms into a monstrous Queen Bee while trying to take down the popular crowd. They even manage to recreate an even more epic getaway car scene while on a moving scooter across the stage where Janis throws her painting at Cady. Unlike the movie, references to social media fill the play - especially when Regina gets hit by a bus, serving as a sign of Mean Girls existing in the digital age.

While Cady Heron (Henningsen) remains the epicentre of the story, Regina George (Taylor Louderman), Gretchen Wieners (Ashley Park) and Karen Smith (Kate Rockwell) end up stealing the show. Louderman shines as lead "Mean Girl" Regina - with perhaps the gutsiest vocals in the cast, while Park makes Gretchen an even more anxiously entertaining character than presented in the film. Karen sings nonsensical tracks that riff on her ditziness, but prove that she has the potential to be funnier than anyone ever gave her credit for in the film.

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While Mean Girls may have just opened on April 8, it was perfectly timed to get 12 Tony nominations - the most that any play received for this award season. Mean Girls may have taken over two decades to get to Broadway, but it was well worth the wait. Regardless of timing, Mean Girls on Broadway proves that there’s nothing Tina Fey can’t do.