“You might well wonder, at first glance, why you should go out of your way to see a small-scale comedy about six high school girls in a Ghana mountain town, circa 1986,” I asked in my review of the 2017 off-Broadway premiere of Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play. “And—even if it turns out to be good—how interesting can it possibly be?”
Very, I responded: “School Girls is uproarious, affecting, human, and sympathetic, too. The funniest time you’ve spent in high school since those History Boys came to town.”
So it’s a given that School Girls, in a new production from Manhattan Theatre Club, should be precisely as vibrant today as it was then. Or is it?
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Bioh, you might recall, is the Ghanaian-American actor/playwright who fashioned Jaja’s African Hairbraiding, which MTC favored us with in 2023. School Girls is just as much fun, or perhaps more. And that “Mean Girls” subtitle is on target; clothing, accents and affectations aside, the meanest of these girls would fit right in at your snarkiest local suburban high school.
The plot centers around a quartet of teens at Aburi Girls Boarding School who are habitually bullied by classmate Paulina (Denée Benton)—until, that is, a newcomer turns up, imported from Ohio, Ericka (Jasmine Amy Rogers). The action spirals with the arrival of Eloise (Patina Miller): a former Aburi student, winner of the 1966 Miss Ghana pageant, recruiter for the 1986 pageant, and clearly a protean mean girl herself. Girls—or, at least, mean high school girls—will be girls (as the saying goes), be they in Ghana or Hollywood. You’ll likely find yourself inching forward in your seat as Bioh adds fat to the fire.
Broadway watchers might note that confluence of names. Benton, who played Natasha to Josh Groban’s Pierre in The Great Comet and is a major player in HBO’s The Gilded Age; Rogers, who made a dazzling debut in last season’s non-dazzling Boop! musical, and is about to don Maria von Trapp’s dirndl in the upcoming Sound of Music; and Miller, star of Sister Act and Pippin. Add Bioh, director Whitney White (of Jaja and Liberation) and costume designer Qween Jean (of Cats: The Jellicle Ball) and you have what you might consider a bevy of top Broadway talents.
Award citations in themselves don’t necessarily guarantee distinction in future work, of course. In the case of School Girls, though, MTC has gathered a complementary group of excellent artists and put them to work. Is School Girls, the play, better now than it was originally? No. But multiple elements of the production join to heighten the play’s effect. If School Girls is as much of a treat as before, watching Rogers and Benton battle it out—in snark, song, and eventual fisticuffs—under the fine hand of director White makes it even more so.
They are well supported by their castmates. Heather Alicia Simms is central to the play’s effectiveness in the pivotal role of the Headmistress, going head-to-head with Miller. (Simms is also given the most spectacular of Qween Jean’s spectacular costumes, starting with a remarkable ‘alphabet’ dress.) Lucia Aremu, Erin Morton, Nia Otchere-Sarfo, and Jordan Rice make a fine team as the subsidiary school girls, each offering distinct portrayals.
It has become customary for Broadway nonprofits to spotlight important non-Broadway offerings from prior seasons, affording the plays and their authors the opportunity to reach a considerably wider audience. Most recently, Manhattan Theatre Club gave us Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day, a most provocative comedy from 2019. By entrusting it to an incisive director (Anna D. Shapiro) and assembling a top-tier cast, the relatively obscure play from a relatively unknown playwright proved a highlight of the season. MTC—now headed by artistic director Nicki Hunter and executive director Chris Jennings, following the lead of the long-serving Lynne Meadow and Barry Grove—has handily accomplished the same lofty achievement, and similarly excellent results, with Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls.
School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play opened September 28, 2026, at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre and runs through November 1. Tickets and information: manhattantheatreclub.com
