Mean Girls is having a moment. The original film that debuted in 2004 has since gotten new life as a musical, and it’s not just set to play at the Pioneer Performing Arts Center in March. The box office record-breaking production is also taking over Hollywood after debuting as a major motion picture at theaters across the world this January, twenty years after its original debut.
While you may have already seen the blockbuster hit, there is still time to purchase tickets for the live-action theater experience, which plays in Reno March 12-17 as part of The Pioneer Center's Broadway Comes to Reno program. It comes from a team of award-winning playwrights, including nine-time Emmy Award® winner Tina Fey, who wrote the original film script. Music and lyrics were written by Emmy Award® winner Jeff Richmond and two-time Tony Award® nominee Nell Benjamin, while two-time Tony Award® winner Casey Nicholaw imagined the choreography.
Mean Girls is making a name in both venues for its uproariously funny take on high school in suburbia, complete with all of the beloved (or love-to-hate) characters, reimagined for a new generation, and staying close but still taking creative license with the original screenplay.
If you're not already familiar, here's the rundown. Cady Heron, the lead character and an exchange student from Africa suddenly experiencing high school in small-town Illinois for the first time, is simultaneously in cahoots with and at odds with a team of picture-perfect plastic girls and a duo of outcasts as she rises in popularity and battles with her own moral compass. But who is and isn’t her best friend? Well, I guess you’ll have to see for yourself. And while you may think you know the story already, you've never seen it quite like this. The line-up of original (and very catchy) songs make the perfectly pink and seriously sinister tale even more fun to bop along to. And if you've been watching Mean Girls on repeat for the past two decades, don't fret; your favorite inside jokes hit with just as much spunk as they always did.
The Broadway rendition has been running since 2018 (and graced the stage at the National Theatre in Washington DC in the second half of 2017), but 2024 marks the first time the stage show will land on a Northern Nevada stage, with the same high-level talent that hits other major cities on the North American Tour. The tour also coincides with the film’s release, which means more people than ever are in the know about the totally fetch stage show. And yes, we're still trying to make fetch happen.
Get sucked into the silly antics that New York Magazine dubbed, “hilarious,” and “a smart, splashy new musical that delivers with immense energy, a wicked sense of humor and joyful inside-jokery.” The Chicago Tribune boasts, “Tina Fey writes funnier, smarter, sharper satire than anyone else in the business.”
To see it in person, purchase tickets through The Pioneer Center and get ready to become part of the herd. Tickets are available at the Pioneer Center box office, 100 S. Virginia St., by visiting pioneercenter.com, or by calling 775-434-1050. If you don’t show up, you might just get burned.
