The upcoming Mean Girls movie musical just officially got fetch. Broadway's original Gretchen Wieners, Ashley Park, has signed on to play an unspecified cameo role in the film, according to Entertainment Tonight.
The Tony nominee created the role of toaster strudel heiress Wieners in the 2018 original Broadway cast of the musical based on the 2004 film. Park has turned her attentions more to film and TV since starring in Mean Girls on stage, co-starring in Netflix's Emily in Paris. Her additional Broadway credits include Mamma Mia!, The King and I, Sunday in the Park With George, and Grand Horizons.
Park joins an ensemble cast of stage and screen favorites including her Girls5Eva co-star Busy Phillips as Mrs. George, The Office's Jenna Fischer as Mrs. Heron, Mean Girls stage and screen writer Tina Fey, and SNL alum Tim Meadows. Fey and Meadows are appearing in the movie-musical remake after starring as Ms. Norbury and Principal Duval (respectively) in the original 2004 film.
Also in the cast are Renée Rapp, reprising her Broadway performance as Plastics leader Regina George; Broadway alum and Tony nominee Jaquel Spivey (A Strange Loop) as Damien; Auli'i Cravalho (Moana, Little Mermaid Live) as Janis; Angourie Rice (Spider-Man: Homecoming) as Cady Heron; Avantika (Senior Year) as the ditzy Karen; Bebe Wood (Love, Victor) as toaster strudel heiress Gretchen; and Christopher Briney (The Summer I Turned Pretty) as Regina's boyfriend Aaron Samuels.
Mean Girls is adapted from the 2018 Broadway musical of the same name, which was itself based on a 2004 hit film written by Fey and starring Lindsay Lohan. In Mean Girls, new girl Cady Heron goes to high school for the first time, and realizes that there is a very clear food chain at the school, and at the top are the beautiful and vicious Plastics. The musical adaptation received 12 2018 Tony Award nominations and ran for 804 performances before closing during the pandemic.
Fey is penning the new film's screenplay after writing the 2004 original and the stage musical's book. The score features music by Jeff Richmond and lyrics by Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde). Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez, Jr. are co-directing the project, with choreography by Kyle Hanagami.
The film is reportedly scheduled to begin filming later this month. A release date has not yet been set.
Kyle Selig and Erika Henningsen in Mean Girls
