ISSUE #2
GENERAL NEWS
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Mean Girls: The Musical, The groolest show on Broadway has officially closed and our cheese fries are soaked in tears. On January 7, 2021, Mean Girls put out a statement saying, “The time has come for us to say, ‘Goodbye’ to Broadway as we will not be reopening upon its return.” Even though the Broadway production has shut down, the tour is still planned to return whenever that may be. Mean Girls on Broadway played 833 incredible performances before the closure was announced. This news is very saddening because the new cast who include; Sabrina Carpenter, Chad Burris, and many others, had just made their mean girls footprint and only got to do 2 shows before the closure. It’s with great sadness that we have to say goodbye to Mean Girls at the August Wilson but we cannot wait to see Mean Girls back performing on tour!
Mean Girls officially announced it's closing on Broadway
Update: International If/Then production
closes for health concerns
An update to the article in Issue 1: adding to the list of closings and musicals that will not see stage time when the Pandemic ends, the newest international production of the Kitt and Yorkey show If/Then officially closed without a single performance on the day it was supposed to open, January 8th, for public health.
Anyone with tickets is advised to visit the official site to view refund policies.
As far as we are aware there have been no talks of reviving the productions, however, I would like to remind everyone that the right and translation exist, so there is hope for a future production. As of right now, official merchandise is still available on the site to help support the theatre. It does not ship outside Japan.
Introducing Ratatouille: The TicTok Musical!
In summer 2007, Disney/Pixar released Ratatouille, an animated film starring Patton Oswalt and Lou Romano as the culinary-loving rat Remy and the awkward chef Alfredo Linguini. The film centers around the two as Linguini deals with his job at a gourmet restaurant in Paris, France, and Remy learns that he can control the young man’s movements by tugging on his hair. Remy uses this to his advantage because he can now make food for people to enjoy, and Linguini can pass himself off as a talented young chef.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world in 2020, leading to widespread quarantine, musical fans on TikTok began to write songs based on the movie. The trend continued for weeks and resulted in a viral storm of posts. It eventually gained enough traction to be noticed and given a complete concert showing titled Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical.
In early January 2021, a crowdsourced streaming adaptation of the musical starred Tituss Burgess and Andrew Barth Feldman in the roles of Remy and Linguini, along with co-stars Ashley Park, Adam Lambert, Wayne Brady, André de Shields, Priscilla Lopez, and Mary Testa. Proceeds from ticket sales went to The Actors Fund in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic, with $1 million raised.
Disney itself did not sponsor the event nor are there plans for a full Ratatouille-based musical, but according to the musical’s Web site, “they are excited to see fans engage with Disney stories, and they applaud and thank all of the online theatre makers whose work on Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical will benefit The Actors Fund!”