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Warsaw Community High School Theater Department will put on “Mean Girls, the Musical: High School Version” March 13-15 at the Performing Arts Center.
McKenna Vore, student teacher and assistant theater director, said the story involves a girl named Katie who used to live in Africa and she and her family move to America. Katie goes to an American high school and she’s trying to meet new friends and learn who she is.
She gets in with the popular girls and starts becoming more like them instead of being who she is, “so it’s about learning when is too far and when you need to say this isn’t who I am, I shouldn’t be acting like this,” Vore said.
This is the first time a production of “Mean Girls, the Musical: High School Version” has been put on at WCHS.
Vore said they’ve double-casted the show. All cast members are in both productions, but in different roles. The shows are split between the two casts, which are named the Fearless cast and the Fetch cast.
Including lighting and sound operators and prop people, there are about 65 to 70 students involved in the production.
“I really think the message of the show is you don’t need to change yourself to have friends. You don’t need to change yourself to make people like you more,” Vore said.
Student Abigail Leslie, student sound designer and operator, said for her, the moral of the musical is being mean is not good.
“You should be nice and just because you’re unhappy with yourself doesn’t mean you have to be a hater and that you should embrace your differences and just being nice to each other,” Leslie said.
Adriana McCreery, who plays Katie in the Fearless cast, said she wanted to be part of the production because “everyone is so fun and I just feel like I can be myself here and also because I feel like I can really express myself in my creativity.”
She said, for her, the moral of the story is you don’t need to change yourself to fit in because Katie has a monologue “where she says you don’t have to change yourself to fit in because you are awesome the way you are and like she says in her song, you’re all stars.”
Shannon Smith, who plays Janice, said she’s been doing theater since she was in seventh grade and it’s always been a good environment “and I feel like I’ve definitely found my place here.”
Smith said the message of the story is really important “especially for high schoolers because everything that’s going on in this show actually happens in real life in high school, so it’s very relevant to all of us. But the main message of the story is just to be kind and to treat people with respect even if they’re different from you and to also be yourself, but not be ashamed of who you are.”
Vore talked about the differences between the musical and the movie with Lindsey Lohan.
“So, obviously, it’s a musical. There are musical numbers in it. This is the high school version, so a lot of things have been changed or altered in order to make it more family friendly for all involved for both the audience and the actors,” Vore said, adding there’s no drug or alcohol references and some sexual references have been cut because it’s inappropriate.
Vore said she really loves the set and thinks it’s gorgeous.
“The costumes are amazing. While I am more of an actor myself, I very much appreciate how things look. I’m not a huge fan of predictions in a show but I think this show is just very technically sound, like the sound is amazing. The lights are amazing. The tables were hand built,” she said, adding the students have actively been building the set and watching them do that has increased her love for the set because it’s done by the students.
Leslie said there’s a lot of liberty so she’s able to take a lot of creative aspects of the production and do her own thing.
She said some of her favorite aspects of the production are the choreography and the vocals.
Student Claire Temple, mic operator, said she’s really excited to see the dancing and the choreographer did a really great job.
The Fetch cast performs at 7 p.m. March 13 and 2 p.m. March 14 and the Fearless cast performs at 7 p.m. March 14 and 2 p.m. March 15.
