Mean Girls @ The National in DC - Reactions — Page 7

Famebroadway2 said: "UGH... These Broadway ticket prices! I am debating on purchasing tix for Broadway previews nowor waiting it out and see if there have a discount in the new year. What are your thoughts?" They'd better get to uploading Mean Girls on PlumBenefits because I am not willing to pay the current prices for this show with these reviews. I think I'll wait until a mailer comes in the mail where I can get a discount (A DEEP discount) since I love the design and such but everything else seems sub-par.

Official opening is two weeks from today; November 19.

The_Spielers_2017 said: "Has anyone sat in the side orchestra seats marked partial/ limited view? Does the proscenium cut off a lot of side action or is everything pretty centered?"

That’s where my seats this weekend will be. If someone hasn’t done so already, I’ll report back.

I saw the show last night and not sure if changes had been made yet (I doubt it given the schedule) but I LOVED it and thought everything ran pretty smoothly. The 1st Act may have been a bit long but it didn't feel that bulky. Erika as Cady is wonderful and she's clearly the lead, which baffles me as to why she isn't on the promotional material. She has a beautiful voice and some really soaring moments. Plays both vulnerable and then confident in the 2nd Act well. I really liked "Wild Life," "Apex Predator" and "Crazy in Love"

Regina didn't feel like the lead at all -- definitely more of a supporting role, and I agree with others that say she isn't as fully fleshed out as she could be. Taylor was fine I thought, but at points it was hard to hear some of her lines, but having seen shows at The National before, the acoustics aren't the best and I was in the balcony. Kate as Karen was HILARIOUS. Her number is so funny and I'm really hoping they don't cut it. It got lots of laughs. Damien/Janis as the narrators worked really well, and I loved both Gray and Barrett.

Also, the actors do move the props themselves but it really works. They transition pretty seamlessly through classroom scenes and it had a good pace. I thought the choreography was great, particularly the fight scene and the cafeteria. The screens behind it work well too, and the bus scene and the way they do it is hilarious.

Overall, I really liked it. Was it Hamilton or DEH? No, but it's funny and witty and Fey's book has some nice updates. The audience was really into it and laughing at a lot of the lines, especially the main ones from the movie of course (She doesn't even go here!)

Oh, and Kerry as the Ms. Norbury/Mrs. George was great. You wouldn't even know you're seeing the same actress, and she had to make some really fast wig/costume change turnarounds work, so I was impressed by that. The song she has as Regina's mom is ok -- it just seemed to come out of nowhere and was probably the weakest. I appreciate they're trying to flesh her out more, but I would have preferred to see more of her as Ms. Norbury -- where they have her look like a dead ringer for Tina Fey.

Overall, 8.5/10. I'm going to try to go again while they're here in DC and get closer seats.

I sat in partial view seats yesterday afternoon in the right orchestra, row G. The seats were pretty good!! I missed maybe half of one or two moments but otherwise, everything was pretty center.

Also, regarding changes to the show, I spoke to Becca Petersen who is a swing at the stage door and she told me I'll be seeing a completely different show in New York. So we'll see!! They all seem extremely excited.

I saw Mean Girls over the weekend. I watched the movie again for the first time in a long time the night before (wow it still holds up!).

The best thing I can saw about the musical is that it keeps the humor of the film and Tina Fey has written a mostly hysterical book. I thought many of the new added jokes were hysterical and delivered brilliantly by the cast.

The worst thing I can say about the show is that I can’t remember a single song. It’s all pleasant enough in the theater, but it all kinda just washes over you. I thought the best song was the “Where You Belong” number introducing all of the school types. It had a classic “Broadway” sound and was one of the few songs I thought served the story well.

There is a truly horrible song in act 2 that is probably one of my least favorite musical number EVER. “Whose House is This?” is a terrible, terrible, tuneless song based off a one note joke that is only funny the first time you hear it. I hope this does not make its way out of DC.

I agree that Kate Rockwell’s Karen basically walks away with the show. She is hysterical and her song in Act 1 had me in stitches. Taylor Louderman is pretty great as Regina though could use a song to set up her character better. Ashley Park who I usually love seems to get the short end of the stick with a song that didn’t work for me. God bless the brilliant Kerry Butler who does great work in all of her roles. Barrett Wilbert Weed and Grey Henson were definitely two standouts. Erka Henningsen was likeable enough but didn’t make that much of an impression on me.

Re. the design I was unimpressed. I’m so over projections and they are overused here. As someone else mentioned they often do look like clipart. And also I don’t feel they make up for a bare stage. There just isn’t much physical set here and I was disappointed by it.

Overall it’s a rare new musical where I find the book in much better shape than the book but I think having the story in good shape is much better than a few good songs and no story. That being said I think there is work to be done on the score and I hope they use this tryout to cut down the show and tweak the music. I had a lot of fun with the show even if there were parts of it that could be improved.

Saw Mean Girls on the weekend and I desperately wanted to love it, but it needs a LOT of work. I'm a big fan of Tina Fey, Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin but as a previous poster said, this show is not making a compelling argument that this story should be a musical (and I think any story can be a musical if done right).

On the positive side, Tina Fey's dialogue is definitely hilarious and some of the new lines are hysterical. Though I know a lot of people on here have praised Tina Fey's book I actually think the book is one of the problems. The book writer's job isn't just to think of funny dialogue, the book writer has to map the structure of the show and unfortunately this is one of the places where the show is failing. The choices of what parts of the story to turn into song are often very weird and the songs often stop the plot rather than moving it forward - eg. Regina's Mom gets a solo (that serves no function in the plot) but Ms. Norbury doesn't get a solo. And it's not clear that Cady is the one we should be rooting for. This is partly due to the amount of time being given to very amusing secondary characters. I also think it was a mistake to have Damian and Janis as the narrators instead of Cady as it was in the film. It distances you from Cady and I found myself not caring about her. The story takes a long time to get going and they really need to focus on the first third of the show, particularly on setting up Cady as a protagonist we should care about and on making Regina a more looming presence. The second act is stronger than the first, but it still feels off. Maybe if the setup of the show was fixed it would make the whole show work better. They've omitted a lot of stuff from the movie and I think that they actually went too far in this and hurt the storytelling.

In terms of the score, it's a mixed bag. I think some style choices are great - like Regina's kind of sultry almost-Bond-villain music. But generic traditional Broadway show tune music in "Where do you belong?" feels completely out of place in a show about contemporary teenagers. The lyrics of the songs didn't seem to match up stylistically with the dialogue - it felt like the characters were in two different musicals when they sang from when they spoke.

Casey Nicholaw's staging and choreography is amazing. That man is a genius.

The cast are uniformly excellent. Kate Rockwell is fantastic as Karen (aided by some fantastic material). Kerry Butler is awesome in all her roles, though from a story perspective I wanted to see more Ms. Norbury and less Regina's Mom. Barrett and Grey are great as Janis and Damian. Taylor Louderman plays Regina in a much more calm, cool and collected way than Rachel McAdam's more peppy, fake Regina in the movie, but I think it really works. Erika Hennigsen is clearly a great performer and it was the storytelling not her performance that made me not particularly care about Cady in the first act.

All in all, this was a disappointment for me and with those ticket prices I wouldn't be recommending it to friends unless they make some drastic changes. I hope they can fix it for Broadway because there are so many talented people involved and it's a great story that I think can work as a musical.

Updated On: 11/10/17 at 02:23 PM

Funny, for some reason I actually enjoyed the "whose house is this" song that everyone else seems to dislike.

Also, there's a joke about Donald Trump near the end of the show that I have a slight inkling will be cut. Something about it being too controversial, which is too bad considering it definitely had the biggest laugh of them all.

So it sounds like the music needs some reworking, which I suspected to be the case. I mean Fey has proven herself a great writer, and her husband writes great music, but can he ,and his lyricist, write songs that actually propel the plot forward.

Also the fact that Cady seems to be a throwaway character is a bit alarming.

Yeah the Trump joke is gonna stay, it doesn't really do anything plotwise but it will kill in DC and NYC.

On the other hand, there was a Harvey Weinstein-ish (not by name) joke that I sincerely hope did not make it past the first night. I know Tina Fey is not afraid to go there, but hopefully the groans from the audience got across how distasteful it was.

BroadwayNYC2 said: "The Coach Carr line is taken from a plot in the movie--not a nod to Weinstein.

Very possible that that flew over my head, it has been about 10 years since I saw the movie. Just saying it didn't play very well. Not even sure that was the reference though- it was some line about a request for a massage and I don't remember it being from Coach Carr? Maybe it's a character talking about him while he's not on stage? I still think ill-advised.