LIMA — ‘Mean Girls’ is coming to the Veterans Memorial Civic and Convention Center this weekend.
It is not the acclaimed classic movie, but instead, the Broadway musical version that will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
“There are a lot of one-liners from the movie, that if you are a fan, you’re expecting to hear and you’re definitely going to get that,” Company Manager for the show and Lima native Liam Millward said. “And it always gets laughter and applause from the audience when those come up.”
The Shawnee grad added that it will be even more special than it normally is to return to his hometown as an employee of the show.
“As a child, growing up in Lima, I was able to see the shows that came through town and I stood on that stage during my high school graduation,” Millward said. “And now I get to be part of the backstage life and give back to the audience. I’m a patron of the arts and I think theater is for everyone so when we get a chance to go to cities that aren’t necessarily like Chicago, it’s wonderful.”
Working on the show, after an initial positive experience with “Frozen: The Musical,” has been everything Millward could have dreamed of.
“I realized I wanted to stay in the business so I reached out to some of my colleagues who were doing it and I told them I was interested and that got my resume to the right people,” he said. “But my passion for the arts stems from wanting to be a participant, but not necessarily having the performing skills to be on stage. But with my background, fitting into company management has been easy for me because I get to participate without being on stage.”
It has landed him with a show that he calls a “wonderful experience.”
“I’ve been working on the show since July, when I started booking out our hotels and signing everyone’s contracts,” he said. “And just to work with some of the original Broadway designers like (original director and choreographer) Casey Nicholaw and his staff has been absolutely fantastic. The amount of genius they have put into the work along with being a normal human and seeing these actors grow from day one to performing every night has been wonderful.”
Millward said it is even more impressive considering the cast is mostly fresh out of college and high school.
“That cast is absolutely fantastic at what they do and they surprise me every day with the talent they have, especially for how young they are,” he said. “They’re unbelievably talented and hilarious.”
One part in particular is Millward’s favorite.
“For someone who might not be familiar with the show, my favorite number is called ‘Meet the Plastics’,” he said. “Meeting some of these three principal girls, who are a focal point of the story and really drive it forward, comes in a cafeteria scene with some amazing choreography, in a way that most people won’t have seen in a show like this before.”
The show is about a lot more than what it seems.
“Theater is approachable and available to everyone and it can be funny or serious,” Millward said. “There is dancing and humor, but there is also a crew of people backstage who are setting up the show and tearing it down so people should enjoy themselves, but realize there is so much that goes on behind the scenes that they may not necessarily see. But it really shows the scale of the productions when you think about how it all moves around.”
Even if you have not seen the movie, Millward said for anyone with an interest in theater, it is worth attending.
“Growing up, I would get subscription tickets to Cincinnati and I would see shows that I knew nothing about and walked away loving it,” he said. “But every show is so unique and so different that I always recommend people open themselves up to the experience and have a good time. If there is anything that we want to do, it is to entertain and I think the show does a great job of that.”
For anyone interested in learning more about the show, Millward said that watching the 2004 movie and book adaption by Tina Fey, who also wrote the musical, are perfect places to start.
For tickets and other information, visit the Civic Center website, www.limaciviccenter.com.
Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.
