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Omaha Magazine

Review: Mean Girls at Orpheum Theater

Mar 09, 2022 10:58PM ● By Daisy Hutzell-Rodman
mean girls cast on stage with burn book

Photo by Jenny Anderson

A high school friend, over lunch on Tuesday, made note about our high school classes having a bunch of Mean Girls in them.

That’s the power of pop culture, and the popularity of the 2004 movie that inspired the Broadway show of the same name.

Bright colors, loud music, drama galore — welcome back to high school. The show starts with outcasts Janis and Damian, then moves to a Lion-King-esque scene of Africa before new girl Cady Heron moves to the Chicago area. 

That’s where it becomes bright. The scenes turn pink, and they remain pink through much of the show. Having been homeschooled and surrounded by more animals than humans her age through her life, she innocently thinks she can be friends with anyone. Artist Janis and theater-loving Damian, however, quickly sway her away from become part of the popular girls known as the Plastics. They soon realize they can use her to get back at these catty girls.

Also an unintentional part of the plot is Cady’s love interest, her math classmate Aaron Samuels. Unfortunately, Aaron is the recent ex-boyfriend of Regina, making the cattiness worse.

The drama comes to a head with all the girls in the class being summoned to come together and quit picking on one another, at which point, they realize they are all being mean to one another. By the end of the movie, Cady helps the girls become a group of friends and helps them be true to themselves.

The show is true to the movie, and fans of the movie will know what will happen in this comedy. The music Tuesday night was loud, making some lyrics hard to hear. The actors overcompensated a bit, but the overperforming was mostly intentional. I attribute the sound to opening night.

Mean Girls is performing at Orpheum Theater through Sunday, March 13. Tickets can be purchased at o-pa.org or by calling the box office at 402.345.0606. The box office is located inside the Holland Performing Arts Center at 1200 Douglas St.

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