Mean Girls @ The National in DC - Reactions — Page 11

Saw it again last night, and compared to the first preview, they've made many changes, almost all for the better. The opening number has been largely restructured, although it still takes the same form as a future assembly for new students. As others have mentioned, the scene at Aaron's apartment has been dropped in favor of moving that exposition to a few lines in other scenes. Almost every song has been trimmed down (other than Stupid With Love, which I think has expanded).

Good:

• Much tighter overall, successfully lost 3 pounds of fat
• They're doing their best to add oomph to Cady and Regina's characters within the existing songs. You're in Cady's head more now, and Regina is scarier. I still agree with others that another song is needed for Cady, though.
• They've worked in the animal kingdom hallucinations pretty well
• DAMIAN! I liked Grey Henson's performance on the first night but I was a little confused by reviews like Peter Marks' calling him "heaven-sent" and saying he almost steals the show. Well it turns out they were right, he is now a much larger presence, dancing over everything and everyone.

Bad:

• I miss the puppet, though I understand why it had to go. Same for the flying dummies in the fight scene.
• Some of the buttons are misplaced in certain songs. It doesn't appear to be for intentional effect, just missing where the audience is at in the flow of the song.
• Mrs. George's song remains useless.

EPDD1000 said: "So the entire song with Cady and Aaron in the bedroom after "Whose House is This" is cut too then?

Also, I saw the show post-puppet... what was the use of the puppet in the show!?"

The bedroom scene is still there and is one of the best in the show IMO. There was a different scene where Cady visits Aaron's house for tutoring, and this is where she learns that he's lying about his address to get into the school district. Now he just tells her that earlier.

The puppet was Janis' art project ( "represents shame" ) in the very first scene assembly, it's been replaced by the mouth painting.

Updated On: 11/29/17 at 11:53 AM

promisespromises2 said: "How is the lottery going? I saw one or two people throughout this thread mention it but wanted to know if anyone knew the numbers coming in! I entered for tonight (figured it’s the middle of week so maybe more chance), and I’m going over to my parents house after my internship (who live closer to DC just in case). I saw Barrett Wilbert Weed in Cabaret at the Signature Theatre in Shirlington and fell in love with her voice and acting.


I entered several times with zero luck. Hope it works out better for you!

Yeah, Taylor Louderman's Instagram story is a video of the cast learning new music! So perhaps they've written some new songs?

So did they switch up the Garrison Keillor joke last night? (Takes the place of Ladysmith Black Mambazo from the movie.)

I really don't understand ANY of the positive reviews here. I saw this mess a few nights back, and am still trying to untangle what a disasterpiece it was.

Barrett and Grey do their absolute best with source material that's cringingly bad. They're the best part of the show, and I'd honestly watch the two of them do anything. They were bright lights in a total mess of a production.

Also, Erika Henningsen is a delight. She's really, really marvelous, and brings something very endearing to Cady. She was a HUGE standout.

Ashley Park is a delight at Gretchen. She nails all of it, start to finish. She's such a huge star that Louderman and Rockwell fall behind in comparison.

Notes on the rest, though:

1. The intro was a 100% rip off of Beautiful from Heathers. Except...not good. They literally introduce the Plastics in a cafeteria, and it's one step short of a promenade through an arch of lunch trays. Except it makes NO sense. Each Plastic sings a little riff about herself, but it makes zero sense.

2. The plot would make zero, ZERO sense to anyone who had not seen the movie. Why do we hate the Plastics so much? Why does everyone worship Regina? Rachel McAdams does a great job in the movie of making Regina so terrible, and yet the sun to which everyone gravitates. It's understandable. Taylor Louderman's Regina is so awful that none of it makes sense.

3. The songs are TERRIBLE. Terrible. Apex Predator? Bossed Up? The totally nonsensical Mrs. George song foisted on an otherwise brilliant Kerry Butler? Whose House Is This? Revenge Party? NO.

4. Taylor Louderman is awful. Just...awful. I couldn't understand a single word she said, or sung for that matter. No character development. Nothing. If I had to hear "My name is Regina George" one more time I was going to shriek.

5. Absolutely none of the costumes or wigs fit. I was really, really surprised by how cheap it all was. The entire show was full of the Plastics awkwardly pulling down way-short skirts and tripping on way-high heels. Wig lines were VERY visible, even from mid-orch.

6. The set was...fine. It was very Dear Evan Hansen, but for parts of the show it was very effective.

The show was basically a hot mess disasterpiece of a mashup of Legally Blonde, Dear Evan Hansen, Heathers, and High School Musical. Except not good. I cannot possible see how this can be saved without scrapping it and starting over. Kerry, Barrett, Gray, Erika, and Ashley deserve better.

Updated On: 11/30/17 at 10:56 PM

Saw the show again last night (also saw the first opening night of previews). Overall it has improved as expected but it still has a low ceiling in its current format. But I guess there’s nothing wrong with that.



The show is tighter. They cut/shortened a lot of unnecessary bits including several classic movie scenes. More can still be cut.

-Janis and Damien still open the show but the puppet as well as much of the dialogue is cut (they should also cut at the George Michael stuff), they pretty much just jump right into the Opening song. Thus the Wildlife song itself seems to be less sloppy and it has grown on me but I still don’t think its strong enough the be THE opening number.

-Aaron’s apartment scene is cut and those lines are folded into the Halloween party scene and a short scene at a froyo shop. So his solo song (an extension of Stupid With Love) gets cut.

-Regina’s mom has more lines and is plugged into a couple more scenes now. I originally argued that she needed to be cut altogether so it helps her character seem a bit more worthwhile. They also trimmed her original scenes a bit (including removing the dog biting the implants). For example she now has a part in Cady’s house party scene instead of Regina.

-Gretchen has a couple more tiny parts as well… and you actually end up rooting for her more than anyone else in the show (more so than Cady or Regina). She’s really the only one with an multi-layer emotional character development. They did remove her trust-fall bit in the gym scene from the movie because that did NOT work well on stage.

-Karen’s role is exactly the same which is good because it’s perfection.

-Taylor Louderman has improved, she is still playing cold-bitch-valley-girl but her diction is better. Tbh her belting is so powerful I feel like the mics/speakers really cant handle it! They seem to try and make her more villainous throughout but her character is still missing something.

-The choreography is still top notch. And it is less sloppy with fewer dancers on stage at a time etc. Still a lot of Bring it On High School dance moves tho.



-I don’t think they completely cut and/or added any songs but that’s a testament to how generic the music feels. Hearing it a second time, I did catch some really good hooks so I think the culprit it the orchestration and pacing. The show doesn’t really have any standalone songs where everything stops and focuses on the singer, there is always so much going on… every song is a catchy tune followed by full loud percussion orchestra, dancers flying all over, a break for fast dialogue, another line from the song, dialogue break again, and then maybe you get the catchy hook one more time. But if you listen closely there are some good tunes so they should pick one or two and push to make them standalone songs.



The current format of the show means that it really is just trying to be a fun musical directly plucked from the movie. The best parts are still the new one-liner jokes, Tina needs to write a new show and she would kill it. So it will get knocks for not being groundbreaking/new/fresh/deep/smart theatre. But as long as it continues to clean up the sloppy bits, It will serve its purpose and please its fans. Anyone looking for anything more than that will be disappointed. There were a giddy group of girls/gays in front of us but behind as was someone completely asleep… I think it sums up the reception its going to receive on bway.

Updated On: 12/1/17 at 12:50 PM

Seeing this again tomorrow (the final performance). Looking forward to it!

The show definitely tightened up from when I saw it in early November (loved it then). They combined some scenes to streamline the plot, changed up some music, and added some new scenes (Kerry Butler's new scene where she breaks into Cady's house during the party was great). I even enjoyed the "Whose House is This" song now. It worked better this time. I can't but my finger on why, but the cast sold it.

Here's to an awesome run! Can't wait for all of you to see it in NY