There was a loud silence in the halls of Heritage High School as students waited with bated breath, their cameras ready to record their own reactions. Suddenly, the iconic first few notes of the opening song rang out through the intercom. It was officially announced that the theater department would be doing “Mean Girls” in the fall. Students started screaming in happiness before they were ultimately silenced once again as Mr. Bradford got ready to announce the second musical. A quick two snaps were heard before another set quickly followed it. The spring musical would be “The Addams Family.”
There’s a lot of factors that go into making the ultimate decision of what musicals we do. Mrs. Grayson Gray, the director of the musical theater program, stated, “Well, I know both shows have been at the top of a lot of kids’ lists for a long time, I definitely take that into consideration, but ultimately, we made the decision based on who we can cast, how many kids we have, who we think will be good, and then if we can cast it, period.” Mrs. Gray also expressed her excitement in what the two musicals would bring. “I would probably say ‘Mean Girls’ is the first show that we’ve done where it’s just come out. This is the second year it’s available. ‘Addams Family’ is a big production so we can cast a lot of people again, but it’s dark.” Mrs. Gray went on to talk about Heritage’s darker past. “I’m kind of excited to go back to our darker roots. We’ve been trying to keep things lighter in the past couple years now, but we’re pretty good at doing dark pieces.”
Students were excited when they learnt what they would be doing next year, Junior Cadin Minjarez said, “I was pretty excited, I’m curious to see how ‘Mean Girls’ goes, and I’ve been wanting to do ‘Addams Family’ for a while. I also really want to see ‘When You’re an Addams’ play out with the whole cast and everything.” Minjarez continued and shared what roles he hopes to get for next year “I’m not really particular on what role I get in ‘Mean Girls,’ since there’s not that many male roles. For Addams Family I really want to be Gomez.” Sophomore Grayson Brown shared, that “I was so excited because me and my friends were guessing that it was going to be Mean Girls and Addams Family, because in a meeting we had for Theater, the musicals had gotten leaked and Mrs. Gray had tried to gaslight us into thinking that the leak wasn’t actually what we were doing” Brown then went on to disclose what song he wanted to see. “I’m really excited for ‘World Burn’ from ‘Mean Girls’ and ‘The Moon and Me’ from the ‘Addams family.’” Much like Brown, a lot of the kids were really excited about “World Burn” which if you’re unfamiliar with Mean Girls, is Regina George’s song as she takes her revenge against the main character.
Written by Tina Fey and composed by Jeff Richmond, “Mean Girls Jr” is a 60-minute show that follows Cady Heron who grew up in the African savanna and has now moved to the Illinois suburbs. She and her new friends devise a plan to overthrow queen bee Regina George and the other two “Plastics.” Cady goes undercover as one of the Plastics, but as time goes on the line between her true self and her plastic self starts becoming one. The story follows Cady as she tries to find a way back to herself and her friends.
The “Addams Family,” which is around two hour show, was written by Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman. It was composed by Andrew Lippa. The “Addams family” follows a seemingly abnormal family who love all things depressing and morbid. When Wednesday Addams grows up and tells her father Gomez, that she has a “normal” boyfriend—he now has to keep a secret from his wife Morticia. Everything changes one night when the Addams invite Wednesday’s “normal” boyfriend and his family.
The 2024-2025 school year is sure to be an exciting one, especially when these are the shows we’ll be doing. The two musicals will be sure to knock the audiences and competitions out of the park.
