A whirlwind of pink and a packed audience made for a performance that can only be described as “so fetch.” From April 16-18, the Town Hall Theater showcased Middlebury College Musical Theater’s (MCMT) performance of “Mean Girls” the musical. Pink posters of cast members dotted the campus in the weeks leading up to opening night, generating excitement for the hilarious and well-known 2000s movie-turned-musical.
Auditions were held over J-term, when the overall prep process began. The spring musical production takes a broader, more inclusive cast — MCMT includes anyone who is interested, even if they’ve never done musical theater before.
“Mean Girls” has a big ensemble and a large cult following, which is partially why show director Lucy Curtis-Cherry ’26.5 was super excited when MCMT got the rights to the show.
“They’re such well-known characters so it feels like we have a lot to live up to and we don’t just want to copy the movie or the broadway. MCMT always aims to put a spin on things and so I've empowered all my actors to do that, make this character your own while still paying tribute to what it’s meant to be,” Curtis-Cherry said.
“Mean Girls” follows the story of Cady Heron (Annaliese Houghton ’28), who grew up homeschooled in Kenya but moves to the U.S. to attend her last few years of schooling at North Shore High School in Evanston, Illinois. As she learns about the complicated but not-so-subtle social dynamics and cliques of the school, she struggles to find a group she fits in. Cady debates between joining the mathletes (later coined “social suicide”), the stoners, the weirdly horny band geeks and the varsity jocks. She ends up getting adopted by two “outsiders” — Janis Sarkisian (Quinna McCarty ’28) and Damian Hubbard (Liam Salerno ’27). This is all depicted in the lively number “Where Do You Belong” where the entire ensemble is dressed up as each prototype.
“There’s a lot of moving pieces, everyone's playing a different character in the ensemble but it’s really cool to look at, and it's hard, we’ve been working on that number for the entire semester. But every time I watch it it’s so much fun and there’s so much going on, on purpose,” Curtis-Cherry said.
William French ’29 and Ava Hill-Edgar ’29, members of the ensemble, played the stoners.
“It’s a lot of fun doing character work, developing your character and putting your costume together,” said French. These characters wore boxers, baggy jeans, white tank tops, sunglasses and backwards baseball hats. “We have little bags of oregano for weed,” Hill-Edgar said.
The characters added a strong comedic element to the show, and this scene was a lot of fun to watch. It was hilarious, but also carried some sad undertones about the strong divisions and stereotypes among high schoolers.
After befriending the two outsiders, Janis, who is an alternative and “not-like-other-girls” artist, and Damian, who is “too gay to function” (according to Janis), Cady soon discovers The Plastics. These are the mean girls of the school that everyone looks up to and is afraid of. Regina George (Campbell Keller ’26) is the queen bee, Gretchen Wieners (Julia Gaudet ’28) is her second-in-command, who always keeps her secrets and is desperate for approval, and Karen Smith (Gabriela Rosen ’26) is the “hot and dumb” one. Janis, who harbours especially strong malice towards Regina after a falling-out they had in 8th grade, convinces Cady to infiltrate The Plastics and sabotage them from the inside.
“One of my favorite moments is the iconic scene from the movie where they’re doing their sexy talent show dance, ‘rocking around the pole,’ and Regina’s skirt falls off. It's one of the moments in the show where Regina's gained weight because she’s been tricked into eating these high-calorie bars by Cady. So we had to figure out a way to give Campbell Keller a fake ass and it ended up looking so funny. And that scene is so chaotic, she’s running around and so is her mom (Regan Boord ’27) with big fake boobs and every time i’m like cackling in the audience. The costumes look really good, the lighting is really good and it's just one of those moments that I know people are really gonna love. Lilah Farrow is the stage manager — godsends. She is leading everything backstage and is killing it!” Curtis-Cherry said.
Drama unfolds on the stage as Cady replaces Regina, abandons her friends Janis and Damian, throws a crazy party, gets suspended from school and witnesses (or pushes… the answer is never quite made clear) Regina getting hit by a bus.
Some notable numbers from the show are “Apex Predator” which highlights the predator-like, evil nature of Regina. The number involved a lot of colorful and funky lights while the actors did chaotic dance moves resembling animals and made roaring sounds to resemble some sort of predator, like a lion.
The number “Sexy” was thrillingly fun. It stars Karen as she sings about her love and excitement for Halloween — a time when you can dress super sexy with no judgment. She opens with the hilarious lyrics:
“If I could change the world / I'd make it Halloween / Every single day / And also have world peace / Maybe world peace should be first / World peace, and then Halloween / Wait, let me start over.”
“This was choreographed by Francesca Pelosi ’28.5. This is her only choreographed number in the show, so she’s been working on it so much, and it's a huge dance number that has been looking really good,” Curtis-Cherry said.
In addition, the number had some wacky costumes, like a sexy shark, sexy corn and sexy Eleanor Roosevelt.
The show, with two acts and an intermission, had the crowd on the edge of their seats the entire time. The set design was really masterfully crafted, with scenes ranging from the high school corridors to classrooms to crazy house parties to Regina’s and Cady’s bedrooms. The costumes added flair to the whole show, with actors frequently changing in and out of them quickly and impressively.
Curtis-Cherry is co-president of MCMT, along with Quinn Donaldson ’26.5. “Mean Girls” marks Curtis-Cherry’s first directing experience for a live performance.
“Every other show I've been a part of, I’ve stage-managed and was always backstage, but as director, I have to be in the audience. I’ve had to learn to let go of a lot of things and trust and delegate my usual jobs to other people, so that’s been challenging but also really liberating and fun to see things from the other side,” Curtis-Cherry said.
Curtis-Cherry is a Film & Media Culture Major and has directed films before, but she is not a singer and thus relied heavily on music directors Madoyan and McCarty for this production.
“MCMT is known for its humour. Our shows are pretty humorous and we really wanted to hone in on that for this show. I love to be in charge, I love telling people what to do so it’s just fun being able to corral such a big group of people coming from all different places on campus, all different backgrounds and skills and hone it into this one project. I like discovering what people are best at and helping them pinpoint that for the show. As the leader of the project, that’s what I've been trying to do — bring the best side out of people,” Curtis-Cherry said.
Editor’s Note: Curtis-Cherry is the Communications Director for the Campus.
