Theater Review: ‘Mean Girls’ (The Musical), From the Pittsburgh CLO

It’s hard to believe that the film comedy Mean Girls is two decades old now. Somehow, it had escaped my attention that screenwriter Tina Fey had also written the “book” for a musical adaptation that premiered on Broadway in 2018.

Maybe because it came out in January 2024, when audience attention traditionally turns to Oscar hopefuls, but not many people paid much mind when the musical itself became a big-screen vehicle. It did decent but not great business. 

Critics noted sourly that Fey’s original tart observations were now more likely to become lost in the musical collaborators’ heavy-handed moralizing about wicked high-school cliques.

I wasn’t really prepared, then, when earlier this month, I saw the high-energy production mounted by the Pittsburgh CLO as part of its summer season. (The other Broadway imports were Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, and Snuffs.)

It’s not necessarily remarkable that, Mean Girls, like the other two shows, was put together in only about a week. But it is astounding that a production with roughly 20 speaking parts and vigorous choreography was produced with none of the seams showing. So much credit goes to director Mara Newbery Greer.

The main character, Cady (adeptly played by Abigail Isom), is a home-schooled transfer from Kenya, but nothing she has seen in Africa with her parents prepares her for the jungle that is American high-school life. (One of the show’s tongue-in-cheek props is a lion’s head, a stand-in for the school’s athletic nickname.)

A fish out of water, Cady is initially courted by a pair of school misfits, Damian (Jack Haroutunian) and Janis (Lyda Jade Harlan), but at their urging begins spying on a clique of popular girls, the Plastics—until she becomes every bit as bad as this trio of “shiny, fake, and hard” teen tormenters.

As Regina, the “Apex Predator” of the Plastics, Landry Champlin was a formidable presence, lording it over her hangers-on and seething with resentment—at the parent who desperately styles herself a “cool mom,” at a boyfriend whose affection she squandered, and at the clique kingdom from which she finds herself exiled through an embarrassing incident aired on social media. She turned her big solo, “World Burn,” into a sizzling revenge tale.

Sydni Moon endowed Regina acolyte Gretchen with an aching desire to belong and matter in her number, “What’s Wrong With Me?” Rounding out the original Plastics trio, Kaley Bender took Karen from mere shallowness to an avatar of the Blonde Bimbo.

Harlan and Haroutunian may have played characters who didn’t fit into the school’s fabric, but this show certainly provided the actors with multiple opportunities to shine, with the show’s intro number, “Mean,” and Janis’ defiant assertion of self-respect, “I’d Rather Be Me”—and Haroutunian, under the guidance of choreographer Dana Solimando, displaying quite a talent for tap.

The show I attended featured a post-show “talk-back” with cast members and other creative talent. One highlight was cast member Jennifer Lybarger, who, though she took on three adult adult roles in the show—Mrs. George, Mrs. Herron, and Ms. Norbury—could have been forgiven for identifying the most with the last of these figures, the teacher who serves in effect as Ms. Fey’s mouthpiece.

Ms. Lybarger, it turns out, spent the last several years directing at the Pittsburgh CLO Academy—and was justifiably proud that five of her former students found spots on this expertly executed production.