Mean Girls
Tina Fey (Book); Jeff Richmond (Music); Nell Benjamin (Lyrics)
Ray of Light Theatre
With a twenty-five-year history of picking musicals “with our gut” that “pack a punch” — musicals that other companies often shun like Carrie, Jerry Springer: The Opera, an all-female Jesus Christ Superstar, or Lizzie the Musical — Ray of Light Theatre triumphantly opens its next quarter century with a double-hitting big bang: Cutting the ribbon at its new, beautifully refurbished Barbary Stage and opening the new site at 215 Jackson Street with a eye-popping, heart-pumping, and rip-roaring Mean Girls. On a stage and in a theatre much more intimate than its former home at the cavernous Victoria Theatre, Ray of Light more than achieves Broadway look, feel, and excellence in its initial outing and offers a renewed promise for a long life of continued fun and fury from a company that has proven time and again it rocks.
ROLT has always done a great job in attracting a wide range of audience diversity, especially a younger set that may not often cross the thresholds of other Bay Area theatres. Choosing as its premiere show at The Barbary Tina Fey’s 2018-premiering Mean Girls is a sure-fire way to continue that trend as evidenced on opening night when the mean age of patrons was probably at least a decade — if not two — lower than in many Bay Area audiences. The edgy, oft-biting humor of Fey’s book combined with Jeff Richmond’s wide range of pulse-pumping rock, pop-influenced ballads, and full-of-heart anthems — along with lyrics by Nell Benjamin that speak a modern tongue but with age-old humor and wisdom — are a perfect choice to be delivered by a stage-filling cast of twenty-one who knock it out-of-the-park in every respect.
Based on Rosalind Wiseman’s 2002 novel Queen Bees and Wannabees and on Tina Fey’s 2004 film Mean Girls, the musical takes us all back to our high school days when probably we all at one time or another wondered “Where Do You Belong?” with the musical’s early song predicting, “You’ll be judged on site, voted in or out, ’cause that’s what high school’s all about.” Certainly that is teenager Cady Heron’s experience as she arrives at North Shore High in Chicago after always being homeschooled while living with her parents in Kenya.
Shunned immediately as the ‘new kid,’ she quickly befriends two of the school’s social outcasts, Janis Sarkisian and Damian Hubbard, who persuade her to infiltrate a trio of girls they have dubbed “The Plastics” — fashion-strutting and ego-inflated Regina George, wealthy but nervously insecure Gretchen Wieners, and totally out-to-lunch and more than a bit dense, Karen Smith. Hoping Cady will bring them some juicy gossip about the Elite Three, Janis and Damian are shocked and eventually shunned by their former pal Cady who finds herself now intoxicated with newfound power as a fourth member of ‘queen bee’ Regina’s royal set.
But no bee hive can have two queens at the same time — especially after Cady locks eyes and lips with Regina’s ex-boyfriend, Aaron Samuels (a compelling, quick-to-like Milo Boland). In a high-energy, full-cast number in which Director and Choreographer Leslie Waggoner sends the stage into a frenzy of fabulous moves, the whole school seems ready to initiate a “Revenge Party” — with the intent that it will be “a party that ends with somebody’s head on the spike.”
Across the board, voices reign supreme by each and all cast members. As newcomer Cady, Arri Toshiko Glenn immediately gains much applause as she sings a bright, uplifting “It Roars,” asking when arriving for her first day at North Shore, “Did you ever get a feeling a whole new world is waiting”. With bold, adventurous spirit reflecting a safari-based childhood, her Cady shows an impressively wide range of singing styles and personality shifts as she sets a course toward ever-increasing popularity. However, naive and disastrous changes-of-direction lead to decisions that hurt and betray almost everyone around her as she strives to be an “Apex Predator” like Regina. But eventually — this after all being a musical — Arri Glenn will sing with emotional power a stirring “I See Stars” as Cady learns that “plastic don’t shine.” What does shine are the stars all around her — the wide range of geek, jock, band-nerd, in-crowd, and out-crowd friends.
But getting there is not easy, and while the path is full of ups and downs for Cady, it is one of sheer fun for the rest of us as we meet her shifting sets of friends and foes. Maia Campbell is the strong, sure-of-herself Janis who carries a long-held hurt by once-friend Regina and whose rebellious spirit is contagious enough we all want to cheer her on. That is especially true when she sings with vibrant, power-packed vocals the musical’s best-known song, “I Would Rather Be Me.”
As her buddy and co-conspirator against “The Plastics,” William Schmidt’s Damian boasts a persona that flashes its many colors like a walking marquee of joy. With big moves that swish and swing with gusto, his sung notes boom with brilliance. His show-stopping number — appropriately titled “Stop” — fills the theatre with a voice that near rattles the walls while an entire stage of tap dancers join him in bringing the feel of a big Broadway musical to the Barbary Stage.
Much hilarity time and again comes from Mackenzie Macdonald’s oft-clueless Karen who is also adoringly sweet and quickly forgiving of any insult coming her way. With an initial little-girl-like voice that gathers the muster to sing with glitter in her eyes a fun and funny “Sexy” as she celebrates Halloween as a day she can be whomever she wants — doctor, pirate, Eleanor Roosevelt, or Rosa Parks — as long as they are also “sexy.”
“Plastic Girl” Gretchen is constantly worried what others think of her and is careful to do nothing that might upset whoever the current ‘queen bee’ is, with Marah Sotelo and her impressive vibrato vocals receiving well-deserved audience appreciation for Gretchen’s stunning “What’s Wrong with Me?” Perhaps more than anyone among this stellar cast, her Gretchen time and again says volumes without saying or singing a word. Telling expressions emanate from eyes that can choose to pop with surprise, shine with emotion, or stare with a deer’s fright.
Whenever Maddy Wenig’s Regina strides with bold steps on the stage in her six-inch pumps and with cocky air of total, ‘queen-bee’ dominance, all eyes — those on the stage and those in the audience — immediately notice. But it is when Regina sings that all jaws drop. Maddy Wenig’s vocal clarity and power along with a commanding stage presence wow us all as her Regina electrifies the air in numbers like “Someone Gets Hurt” and “World Burn.”
Besides these spectacular principals, a big reason ROLT’s Mean Girls is such a winner is the number of times the stage is filled with the resounding voices and the rolling harmonies of an ensemble that never misses a beat in executing choreography that is exhilarating in its sheer energy and athleticism. Leslie Waggoner sends dancers pounding, pumping, and punching with limbs and bodies flying in all directions in multiple modes and styles. The six-piece, hidden band under the direction of keyboardist Jad Bernardo serves up Jeff Richard’s multi-variant score with much vigor and vivacity as their music accompanies all song and dance.
Yrving Torrealba’s set design includes easily re-assembled pieces that transform via smooth and seamless ensemble transitions from dining hall to class room to gym, bedroom, and house party. The sleek curves of three insets on the back wall become the screens for ongoing projections and videos designed by Torrealba and Stephen Hitchcocks that are a show unto themselves and continually establish the scene and mood (often with humor) for what is happening on stage. Ashley Renee’s design of garb and glitter, attire and apparel that define so delectably the many different personalities and quirks of these teens is — to use Gretchen’s new hip word of the day — totally “fetch.”
In the end, there is nothing ‘mean’ about the characters portrayed, the story unfolded , or ROLT’s production of Tina Fey’s Mean Girls. In fact, the thrilling exuberance of the cast and their much-proven talents of acting, singing, and dancing under the creative direction of Leslie Waggoner ensure that audiences leave this feel-good musical with big smiles and hearty wishes for a continued success of Ray of Light Theatre in its new Barbary Stage venue.
Rating: 5-E, MUST-SEE
A Theatre Eddys Best Bet Production
Mean Girls continues through May 30, 2026 in a two-hour, thirty-minute production by Ray of Light Theatre at The Barbary Stage, 215 Jackson Street, San Francisco. Tickets are available at https://www.rayoflighttheatre.com/.
Photo Credits: Ben Krantz Studio
