When I found out our high school musical was slated to be Mean Girls, I knew I wanted to be part of the show! It takes place in a suburban American high school, and the main character develops a massive crush on a fellow student in her AP Calculus class. Comedic genius Tina Fey wrote the 2004 screenplay for the movie and this was the basis for the 2018 musical. Tina Fey also played the part of Ms. Norbury, the AP Calculus teacher in the 2004 movie. I had seen the movie once and the musical twice. I knew that “On Wednesdays we wear pink,” (which I often do if I remember) and that “October 3rd” is Mean Girls Day.

So, I emailed our theatre teacher / director to warn him that I wanted to be Ms. Norbury in the show. I might have also added, “I’ll make sure you sell out for all three shows!” (Why do I say things like this?) He replied, “Great! I’ll add you to the email list so you are aware of the audition requirements and times.”

Audition? I had to audition? Like, would I have to sing a song? Along comes the email a few weeks later, and yes, indeed I did have to sing a song and do some acting. Any other normal person would have quit right there, embarrassed to go through the effort of auditioning to end up not making the cast. But, I am not a normal person. So I started picking the brains of my theatre students to make sure I knew what to expect on audition day. Luckily, I was handed a get out of jail free card a few weeks later when I realized our youngest son would be playing in Natchez as part of the Mississippi All-State band. I would have to miss auditions in order to get there in time. So, back to emailing the theatre teacher for an alternate time and he said, “No problem. You are going to be Ms. Norbury anyway.” I guess the promise of a sell-out worked.

Bouncing around on Cloud 9, I made it through the rest of the semester. At our first rehearsal after the New Year, those of us with speaking parts not only got a photocopy of the script but also a very nice book with the script and music. I was surprised I got the nice Libretto Vocal Book too but since it had to be returned at the end of the show I gave it back right away, afraid I would misplace it. After we played a few theatre games our director said, “I’ll email you every Sunday afternoon so you know what pages we are working on each day so you know if you have to be at rehearsal. Start memorizing your lines.” I set about highlighting my lines. I had no idea how I was going to memorize them.

I also had NO IDEA how many lines this would entail. Again, any normal person would not be putting herself out there like this. I stopped counting when I got to 70. I had a massive soliloquy in Act II (trust fall scene) but I wasn’t going to think about that at all since we were only blocking and rehearsing Act I at first.

Many afternoons I went from my classroom directly to rehearsal. The students were so amazing. At one point the student playing Damien said to me, “Ms. Cornelius, you’re really good at this.” I replied, “I’ve been acting my whole life.” He gave me a confused look. I replied, “Yeah. I hate my job and nobody knows it.” Now he was shocked (since he had me for AP Statistics and was thinking wow I really believed she loved teaching). Then a moment later he started laughing. Yep. My improv is good. Tina Fey would be proud.

I was told to not upstage the lead. I was told to turn on my mic. I was told to turn off my mic. But for the most part, I figured it out. Our director never had any notes for me at the end of rehearsals. I asked his opinion on everything (should I wear a skirt / can I fix this line so the calculus is right?) and he had a lot of patience with me and basically said yes to everything.

Speaking of the lead, I had taught her in Algebra I several years back. In fact, I taught 8 of the 10 people who were the the main characters! Cady and I had many scenes together and I quickly realized I needed to memorize not only my lines but hers too (at least the ones pertinent to our scenes). At one point when neither of us were on stage Cady said to me, “I can’t wait until we start rehearsing our song ‘Do This Thing!'”

Our song? What? I have to sing a song with the lead? That small detail had slipped my mind. It was after the trust fall scene and I was avoiding thinking about that so it was not surprising that I knew nothing about what happened afterwards.

As we got closer to the performances, the whole cast and crew was there for run throughs. I began to be more and more amazed at what this one director could pull together. Yes there was someone who came in for choreographing and dance help, and a person I saw a few times for singing help, but it was mainly our sole theatre teacher. There was no adult backstage telling students where they needed to be when. There was a stage manager and assistant stage manager, both students. All of the actors scurried around backstage, taking off mics and costumes en route from where they just exited to where they needed to be next.

On opening night I was nervous, but not any more nervous than the first day of school. The first act is pretty light for Ms. Norbury and I just went along with the flow. People were not laughing at my funny lines, such as “Home-schooled? That’s a fun way to steal money from my union,” and “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me, and I’ve been married twice,” but it didn’t bother me because I figured a lot of them wouldn’t land with our audience anyway and I was trying to not upstage the lead. (Nights 2 and 3 the audience was HOWLING at everything. It makes a huge difference!) In Act II I botched the whole trust fall scene by forgetting to have them close their eyes and raise their hands. But I didn’t even notice until we were off stage and one of the girls told me what happened! Our director didn’t even notice and the audience had no idea. Night 2 and 3 I did better.

That’s the thing with being in the production — I continued to get better each time. It was a big commitment and a lot of work but also a lot of fun, of course. The following Monday in school, lots of people were telling me how well I did and how much they enjoyed the musical. A few days later, one of the students in the show asked me if I was sad it was over. And I said, “Kind of. But not really. It was a lot of work. And I’m happy a got a chance to do it.”

Final Note: The did not sell out all three nights, but they came close. And they made more money than they every have on the musical. Next up, Frozen!