STAGE WEST: Moonlight Stage Productions' "Mean Girls"

"Mean Girls" makes an effective transition from film to the stage.                       Karli Cadel Photography

            Who needs a Burn Book when you’ve got social media?
            The omnipresence of the latter (along with singing and dancing, of course) is the most conspicuous difference between the “Mean Girls” movie from 2004 and the musical adaptation that premiered 20 years later and which is on stage in a “fetching” production at Moonlight Amphitheatre in Vista.
            While the Burn Book that the Plastics (Karen, Gretchen and Regina, the Queen Bee) used in the movie to be mean in writing toward just about anyone at North Shore High besides themselves is still a major plot point in the “Mean Girls” musical, social media snark is part of their ammo in the narrative update (like the film’s screenplay written by Tina Fey). It does make one wonder why bothering with a book that no one else can see (until later in the story) is even necessary when the “unpopular” can be blasted on SM.
            Nevertheless, the digital update to “Mean Girls” is a welcome one, whether evoked in projected emojis in texts or in a cautionary song ‘n’ dance number like “Stop.”
            What hasn’t changed from the film to the stage is the fact that the story’s mean girls, those Plastics, are still the best characters. Rachel McAdams announced her presence as a movie star playing Regina George in the movie, and Moonlight’s Regina, Madeline Walters, is the star of almost every scene she’s in.
            Carrying on the Plastics tradition of Lacey Chabert and Amanda Seyfried, Salima Gangani and Lizzy Sheck shine at Moonlight as Regina’s gullible cohorts Gretchen Wieners and Karen Smith. Gangani is gifted with by far the musical’s most poignant (and messagy) tune “What’s Wrong With Me,” while Sheck is the production’s ace comedian, whether singing (on “Sexy”) or just nailing Fey’s best lines.
            As Cady Heron, the homeschooled teen from Kenya who moves to Illinois and is thrust into the discriminating cliques of North Shore High (“Where Do You Belong?”), Erin Dubreuil is likable and a fine singer, though like Lindsay Lohan before her she’s overshadowed by all the vivid character turns around her. Besides the Plastics, there’s Jack Stoler and Cayden Alley as Janis and Damian, the two outsiders who try to help Cady find her way at North Shore (and to stick it to Regina in the process), and Tracy Lore as math teacher Mrs. Norbury, she who, having been blasted in the Burn Book, tries at the end to stem all the mean-girl infighting.
            The music (by Jeff Richmond) and lyrics (by Nell Benjamin, lately of the Old Globe’s “Huzzah!”) carry the “Mean Girls” story along with a few nuggets – the “Apex the Predator” tune that introduces Regina, the aforementioned “Stop” and “What’s Wrong With Me,” the recurring “Fearless” – though some feel only like opportunities for chorusing and high-stepping and don’t significantly move the tale forward. (The “Mean Girls” movie is 97 minutes’ long. The musical is about two and a half hours’ long.)
            Chorusing and high-stepping are staples of Moonlight productions, however, and director/choreographer John Vaughan, along with a large and nimble ensemble, ensures that “Mean Girls” is no exception.
            Tina Fey’s gotten a lot out of mileage out of “Mean Girls”: a movie, a stage musical and a 2024 film of the musical. Can a “Mean Girls” TV sitcom be one day in the offing? Somewhere out there must be an actress well-suited to step into Regina George’s high-heeled shoes.
            “Mean Girls” runs through June 20 at Moonlight Amphitheatre in Vista.