Tina Fey celebrated the opening of “Mean Girls” in Washington, DC, Sunday night with an upbeat but politics-free party at the Atrium at Old Ebbitt…
Tina Fey celebrated the opening of “Mean Girls” in Washington, DC, Sunday night with an upbeat but politics-free party at the Atrium at Old Ebbitt Grill.
Fey and her producers, “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels and Sonia Friedman, invited close friends but no politicians, left or right.
The only politico spotted at the show so far, I’m told, is White House counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, who snagged a seat in the National Theatre’s mezzanine last week at a preview.
“Mean Girls,” which opens at Broadway’s August Wilson Theatre in the spring, is nearly sold out in Washington. Millennial female fans of Fey’s 2004 movie are turning out in droves, decked out head to toe in pink.
“There is a massive party atmosphere,” says a source, but the intermission goes on forever because the lines to the ladies’ rooms are longer than Donald Trump’s ties.
Investors are confident they have a hit, but Fey and the creators still have some work to do. The creative team is off this week for Thanksgiving, but they’ll be back in DC next week to tweak the show. Bigger changes will be coming in January, Michaels and Friedman say, when the show goes into rehearsals in New York.
Washington Post critic Peter Marks’ review is a road map.
Marks enjoyed the show, but said Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin’s score could use more variety and lacks a couple of key numbers.
A major omission, everyone on the team seems to agree, is an 11 o’clock number for Cady Heron, the good girl to queen bee Regina George’s bad girl.
“She really needs a ‘Defying Gravity’ moment,” says a source, referring to Stephen Schwartz’s showstopping song for Elphaba in “Wicked.”
Production sources say Benjamin and Richmond (Fey’s husband) are at the keyboard, trying to find the right hook — and title — for a song that will crystallize Cady’s place in the show and in the audience’s heart.
“Jeff and Nell got the harder notices, but they’re smart,” another source says. “They were already talking about that problem before the reviews.”
The tracks — that is, Fey’s script — are there.
“The book is tight and funny — it’s the best part of the show,” says a Broadway insider unaffiliated with the show. “All the lines from the movie that need to be there are in place, but they don’t feel canned. Tina Fey is going to get a Tony nomination for her work.”
More hot pies for “Sweeney Todd” down at the Barrow Street Theatre! The immersive revival, set in a re-creation of a 19th-century London pie shop, has been extended yet again, to May 27.
I saw the production over the weekend and it’s sensational. The three-piece band does wonders with Stephen Sondheim’s rich score. And I’d forgotten how witty Hugh Wheeler’s script is.
Carolee Carmello is a daffy but dangerous Mrs. Lovett, and Hugh Panaro, a veteran Phantom of the Opera, is downright unnerving as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. He scared the bejesus out of me when he popped up from an unexpected corner of the pie shop.
I’ve often said that “My Fair Lady” is my favorite musical, but after seeing this production of “Sweeney Todd,” I’m not so sure.
Let’s see how Lincoln Center’s upcoming revival of “My Fair Lady” stacks up to Barrow Street’s not-to-be-missed “Sweeney Todd.”
