Tina Fey showed up on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday night. In addition to performing an impressive barbershop quartet version of the Bruno Mars earworm “That’s What I Like” with the Ragtime Gals, Tina was promoting the two shows she produces, Netflix’s The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which kicks off its third season next Friday, and the NBC sitcom Great News, which is a riot (but I love Andrea Martin and worked in TV news for years, so maybe I’m slightly biased).
Jimmy kicked off his interview by asking the 46-year-old former 30 Rock star about the Mean Girls musical. Tina, who confessed to being a “musical theater nerd” in high school (there is NO shame in that and, fun fact, she played Frenchy in a school production of Grease) said that the show is “moving along” and announced that tickets for the out-of-town preview run at Washington DC’s National Theater are already on sale. The show will open on Halloween and run until December 3 in the capitol city and move to Broadway in 2018. According to Playbill, rehearsals for the NYC run begin on February 12, 2018 and the first performance is tentatively scheduled for sometime between March 10 and 12.
Bringing the beloved 2004 movie, which starred Rachel McAdams and Lindsay Lohan, to the Broadway stage has been “fun” according to Tina. She made sure to boast about the musical’s talented cast. She told Jimmy:
It’s so cool. It’s so fun because—you can sing—but I’ve been in stuff that’s like movie musicals, whatever, a little bit. The secret with movie musicals is you can secretly suck and be a star. But to do things on stage? Like, these kids are so talented. We have the cast now. We’ve been rehearsing for about a month. There’s a bunch of baby Timberlakes. Everyone can do everything! They just sing so loud and they dance so hard. Like, my brain is broken!
[From The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon via E! News]
The show is kind of a family affair for Tina, her husband, Jeff Richmond, wrote the music (with lyrics from from Legally Blonde composer-lyricist Nell Benjamin) and Tina’s father-figure, SNL creator Lorne Michaels, is one of the show’s producers. Tina wrote the show’s book, based on her original screenplay.
As both a musical theater nerd and a huge fan of the movie, I can’t wait until this musical hits the stage, especially if they include a show stopping number called “You Go, Glen Coco.” I think a trip to New York next spring may be in my future.
Photos: Getty Images, WENN.com
The thought that this will bring Lindsay Lohan out of the woodwork is scary indeed and fits with Halloween.
Other than that, I care more about the return of Kimmy Schmidt than the musical.
Rachel should make an appearance as Regina! People still remember her for that role
I was an extra in the movie and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. A girl’s nose got broken, the women’s bathroom was non functional so we had to use the restroom is shifts by gender, there wasn’t enough seating in the basement of the school (where we were being kept) so we had to sit on the floor, which was cold and damp… It was awful. I’ve seen the movie once and that’s enough for me. I can’t get past how terrible th experience was to find any joy in the movie or this upcoming show.
I’m sorry you had such a bad experience 🙁 were you at least able to meet any of the cast?