PEORIA MAGAZINE April 2023

Gia Gardner, Lia Zurek, Kara Hofman and Kyleigh Allen rehearse their roles

LAUNCHING PAD

IT’S NOT EASY BEING MEAN Peoria’s Richwoods High School is the first school in central Illinois to perform Mean Girls

BY LAURIE PILLMAN PHOTOS BY RON JOHNSON

A s the vice president of the Children’s Community Theater Board and the director of several local musicals, Gillian Cramer has worked with actors young and old. She encourages the sense of ownership teenagers bring to the theater. When this year’s students told her they wanted to perform something other than classics like Cinderella or Oklaho ma , she used it as a teaching experience.

“I said, if you guys want to do it, you need to come up with your arguments and present it to the principal because this is your school. This is your musical … You’ve got to take ownership of it.” That’s precisely what they did. While their initial pitch, a darker musical with more mature content, didn’t make the cut, the principal was open to the students performing a modern show. In September 2022, Music Theater International offered community and

high school theater rights to Mean Girls the Musical . Everything came together. “I appreciate that Richwoods is brave enough to let us try something like this,” Cramer said. Richwoods is the first school in the Peoria area to perform the musical. Based on the 2004 film Mean Girls , the musical follows student Cady Heron as she enrolls in an Illinois public high school after years of being home-schooled in

92 APRIL 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE