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Mickey-Jo ranks every musical set in a high school | rating Heathers, Dear Evan Hansen, Mean Girls + more
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Mickey Jo
Do I even remember how to tie this? Oh. Magically coming back to me. It's like riding a bicycle. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Oh, my God. Hey, my name is Mickey Jo. Welcome back to my theater themed YouTube channel. And I am dressed like this today because it is September. It is late September, it is early October, it is mid October. And I have been meaning to make this video for a few weeks now because it's the time of year when people are heading back to school. And if you don't know, before I was a full time theatre critic on social media, I used to be a teacher. So September was always, you know, a point of big change and return for me. My birthday is also in the first week of September, so it always felt very much like a new beginning in some ways. And even though I now don't work in education, I still feel that every single year. So I was thinking I would come onto YouTube and talk to you about my favorite and least favorite musicals set in high schools. Now, I'm talking specifically about like secondary high schools here. Wicked doesn't count for this because even though they go to Shears, I'm counting that as a university, which would be beyond high school. But this is something of a trope that we see in musical theatre as well as, of course, High School Musical. I bet you can think of a handful already of musicals set in the high school world. It's something we're maybe even seeing a little bit more of at the moment. And I was thinking about this the other day and I got to wondering, what is the best musical which takes place in a high school? And to answer this question, I think we have to consider the value of the show itself, its material, as well as, you know, how well it relates and represents the high school experience. So that is exactly what we are going to be doing. Buckle up. We're going to be talking through all of the high school set musicals in today's video. And as if that theatrical countdown is not educational enough, I am very excited to be partnering on this video with skillshare. Skillshare, if you don't know, is this amazing online learning platform. In fact, it's the largest online learning platform for creatives. Designed by creatives with on demand resources, it lets you learn by doing and provides you the opportunity to develop skills at your own pace, no matter what your skill level is. Skillshare offers classes in so many different creative categories, including music, graphic design, business and marketing. You can learn music theory for songwriters, or you can learn how to write your first screenplay. They also have these brilliant learning pathways that help you develop broader, ongoing skills. And I was immediately drawn to one particular pathway about kickstarting and sustaining creative projects. In particular this one class from YouTuber Thomas Frank about how to build lasting habits in terms of productivity by creating manageable goals and realistic expectations, and eschewing the idea of striving for something perfect. Given that I'm more used to a traditional classroom environment, I was really comforted by the notes from other students who had taken the course previously. Now, like me, skillshare is also focusing on Back to School right now. Whether you are someone who has recently returned to education or whether someone in your family has. Right now there is a link in the description of this video and the first 500 people to sign up will get a one month free trial of Skillshare. Now back to today's Stagey Countdown. So what I figured I would do is assign each of these point values based on three different criteria. We are going to talk about their like, impact and how big they got with fans and how like worldwide they've become, how well known they are. We're going to talk about my interpretation of the quality of their material, the score and the script, etc. We're also going to talk about how thoroughly and authentically they show the high school experience, how significant a feature of the show is that environment and how honest does it feel. And because I'm not ranking them but assigning them each a point value, I've decided to go through them in alphabetical order, starting with a musical that if you're US based, you may not know. I'm talking about Babies. So Babies is a brand new musical co written by Martha Geelan and Jack Godfrey. It recently had a full premiere professional staging here in the United Kingdom at the Other Palace. I am very hopeful that we are going to see Babies again before too long. Now it takes place at an unnamed school in an unnamed location in the UK and it follows in the trend that a lot of shows have been participating in recently, where all of the performers are encouraged to use their own accents. So there's really no way to pin down where exactly this might be taking place, except for the fact that they talk about going to the cliffside and you know that the sea is there, so it's coastal. That could be Cornwall, it could be Dorset, it could be Essex. Babies tells the story of a group of year 11 students. US people. This is students aged like 15, 16. They're about to take their GCSE exams, which are some of the most important secondary school exams. And it follows them for a week as they take on a very particular assignment where they are each given a sophisticated robot baby simulator to take care of to teach them about the challenging realities of parenting. It's kind of a pregnancy deterrent, but through that we learn a lot about these characters as they learn more about themselves. You know, there are some who are incredibly gifted in terms of the academic world and who are really high achievers, are very driven, also put a lot of pressure on themselves, who really struggle with this task. And there are others who are not necessarily as academically gifted, who have a whole host of things going on at home, who have never thrived in the traditional school environment, who do very well with this task. And we see those two students in particular butting heads about this. Now, I love the material for this show. The songs are all bangers. There are concept recordings of some of them available for you to listen to online. But I cannot wait until we get a full baby's cast recording because the score is so good and I really love the script as well. Right off the bat, I am going to give this a 5 out of 5 for material. You can go and watch my 5 star review of the production at the other Palace Theatre. In terms of how well it represents the school environment, this is a little bit trickier because we don't actually see teachers or class situations. I mean, we see things happening in class, but they're almost always singing about something unrelated to that. It's not so much about being at school as everything else that's going on in their lives and their anxieties about parents and friendships and the future and gender identity and sexuality, which are all super valid things and things that you contend with. And I have to acknowledge as well that the overarching theme is still a class assignment. And much of it, almost all of it, does take place within school. They're wearing school uniforms the entire time, for crying out loud. Let's give this a four for the school experience. What brings it up is the authenticity. Now, this was actually developed originally with a youth theatre group and they helped to workshop some of the material. And so some of these lines, some of these lyrics, came out of the mouths of young people genuinely anxious about their GCSEs and going into year 11. And you know what's more authentic than that? Finally, in terms of this show's reach and popularity, it's really started to gain some buzz here in the uk. Obviously it hasn't really gone worldwide yet, nor has it had its full West End arrival. So right now it's only somewhere at around 2. But I am very excited to see Babies go on to hopefully a very bright future. I'm excited about this show. Keep your eyes peeled for it. So out of a possible 15 points, babies gets 11. Next up, be More Chill, a musical that has a special place in my heart because one of my first things on social media on this YouTube channel actually was being a member of the Squip squad for the London production. Now Be More Chill is a show which was originally created for the Two River Theatre in New Jersey, a regional theatre in the US that I visited not too long ago. It features a score by Joe Iconis and a book by Joe Trace. It's based on a novel by Ned Ferzini, and it tells this sort of a Little Shop of Horrors esque story about this unpopular high school student who finds out about a black market pill that implants a supercomputer inside of his head. It's called a Squip that will give him advice on how to be More Chill like the title suggests, and as you might predict, it gives him very effective advice and his life changes. But it also encourages him to make slightly douchey decisions and leave behind his very reliable best friend, Michael. Now Bimo Chill is also set in New Jersey. I believe it's set in Metuchen. I know how to pronounce that because of Kimberly Akimbo, and if I'm getting it wrong, then they got it wrong. The school's name is Middleburgh, the mascot is the Wombat, and I think it does a great job of showing the natural anxieties of the high school experience. Like it's obviously this heightened science fiction thing, but my favorite thing about it is that you have both the popular and unpopular students, and the show takes time to explore each of their issues and anxieties. Some of them take a little longer to come to the surface than others, and it's a little wacky, it's a little zany, it's not necessarily the most true to life thing, but I think it's another great example of a show that explores the mental health of the high school environment. Again, I feel like I'm going to give this1a4 for high school representation. In terms of material, I'm also going to give it a 4. I like the score of Be More Chill and I like the script of Be More Chill. There's one particular standout song from this score that became very successful. It's called Michael in the Bathroom, during which the character of Michael, after being rejected by his friend Jeremy at a Halloween party in the second act, sings this angsty in a monologue song about having an anxiety attack. And I feel like, you know, this was one of the first shows to really explore a character going through that on stage in a musical number, at least in a contemporary way. Now it's in part due to that song and the original cast recording of the Two river production in New Jersey that the show actually made its way back to Off Broadway and eventually Broadway, because initially there no plans for this to transfer into Manhattan. However, it kind of got revived because so many people listened to it on Spotify. This is a really amazing story about how the online musical theatre fandom managed to resurrect a show and, you know, get it all the way to Broadway from there, London and the West End. And it's been a little while since we've heard anything about Be More Chill, but I have heard rumor of a regional production happening in the UK and I am very excited about that. So I'm going to give Be More Chill. I don't think, like every musical theater fan would necessarily know Be More Chill if you were to ask them about it. Still that little bit more niche, but it has had this amazing journey. So that's what that's 1212 for be more Chill. Next up is Bring It On. Now, Bring it on actually takes place over two different high schools. We have Truman High School and Jackson High School. We follow this popular protagonist who begins at one and then ends up being transferred to another. And I guess she was the cheerleading captain at the first school. And then when she gets to the second school, they don't have a cheer team. And so she brings together a group of slightly reluctant creative hip hop dancers and turns them into a cheerleading team. It's a story all about, like, making unconventional friendships and like, learning about themselves. It's not based on the first Bring it on movie. It's based on, like a hybrid of multiple different Bring it on movies that combine finds different ideas. It has elements of the first one. It has elements of some of the other ones as well. I actually really like Bring It On. I was thoroughly charmed by this show the first time that I saw it. It has a score from multiple composers, including Lin Manuel Miranda and Amanda Green, reflecting the different musical styles of the two environments, which I think is a smart choice. The score is not going to change your life, but there are Some bangers in there as well. And the original production catapulted literally many of its stars onto huge careers. There are so many people who were in that original production of this show. Like Ariana DeBose was in Bring it on on Broadway, Adrienne Warren was in Bring it on on Broadway, and Taylor Louderman and Kate Rockwell. Like, it was this really exciting cast. And there was a production that came over to the uk. It was running at the South Bank Centre. It was meant to go on this UK tour and sadly the tour didn't end up happening, so the production's run was cut short. And I feel like Bring it on deserves this big resurrection. It deserves better than it's had. If a lot of shows like Heather's and like Mean Girls can go on to be really popular, similarly based on films, similarly showing the same kind of an environment, I want that for Bring it on as well. So I feel like, though I think it deserves better. This is probably at a 2 in terms of its global reach, success and popularity. I would give the material a3, I think. But it's been a long time since I've listened to Bring It On. Maybe I'm being a little bit too harsh there. And you know what? I'm going to give it bonus points for reflecting multiple different high school experiences, multiple different types of communities and cliques. And we see so many different teenage mindsets and we get to see them really turn into real people and experiencing real emotions. And particularly our main protagonist, Campbell, I believe her name is Campbell, has a really great, rewarding arc in this show. I'm gonna give this one a 5 for the high school experience, giving an Overall score of 10. Next up is Carrie. Don't hate me. Don't pour pig's blood over my head. But I have never seen Carrie on stage. I know I am just as unhappy about it as you are. There was a production done at Southwark Playhouse a little while ago starring Evelyn Hoskins. I didn't get to see that one and, you know, it doesn't come around too often. I would love a big major revival of Carrie somewhere in London and I think it would do very well right now. Like, we're loving spooky stuff right now. We're loving these high school set musicals. With the success of Heather's, I actually have a pitch. Bring back Carrie. Cast Eleanor Worthington Cox from Next to Normal. Don't you think she'd be amazing as Carrie and cast who would be a fun Margaret? Maybe Rebecca Locke would be a great Margaret. Maybe a Jenna Russell. Maybe Casey Levy just flies back over the Atlantic to play her mum again. I'm just saying the options are there anyway. Carrie was a musical based on the Stephen King novel of the same name that was also turned into a film. And there is some discrepancy about the name of the high school, but it consistently takes place in Chamberlain, Maine, in New England. And the whole thing is this supernatural allegory for coming of age because it follows the story of a young girl named Carrie who is bullied as she's beginning to go through puberty by the other girls in her class. She has a very difficult relationship with her intensely religious mother who, you know, keeps her very closely guarded and doesn't want her to go to the prom. It's all about going to the prom, which is a running theme in many of these shows. And even though I haven't seen it on stage, I have listened to the cast recording a lot. And one of Carrie's classmates feels bad for the way that they've treated her. So she gets her boyfriend to ask Carrie to the prom. But one of the other mean girls doesn't take kindly to that. So they hitch this plan to be really awful and embarrass Carrie at the prom by having pig's blood poured over her. And that does not go well for them. I'm not going to spoil the ending for you, but it gets dark, which I guess is a reality of the school experience, sadly for a lot of people. Like, this really shows some of the horrors and the turmoil of bullying and being bullied. It also tackles the whole coming of age thing. It also shows a student having a difficult home life, being comforted by a reassuring teacher. We see teachers, we see classes, we see the prom. We see an awful lot here. I think this is five out of five. Unfortunately for high school representation. I really like the material. I'm going to give this material A4 as well because it has a couple moments, but there are a lot of really strong songs. And what little I've heard of the script, I enjoy. It's very characterful. You know, those characters come right off of the cast recording. We need to talk about Carrie's success and impact because this is famously a flop, like a big, disastrous megaflop. And There are other YouTube documentaries you can go and watch about that. Wait in the wings. My friend Brendan, I believe, has a video about Carrie. It was a legendary flop. It's like the flop of all flops. And even though, you know, it goes on to have these subsequent Productions. There was an off Broadway run a few years back with the late great Marin Maisie and Molly Ransom and Christy Altomir and Gina Duvall and Andy Mientus, like that was an amazing cast. Derek Klanner was in that as well. And there was that London production that I told you about. We still don't see Carrie as often as I think we should because enduringly it has this legacy of that original production with Lindsay Hateley, with Barbara Cook at the RSC in London, with Betty Buckley in New York, where it closed famously, quickly. We kind of have to give it a one in terms of success and reach. Don't Hate Me, Carrie, the musical fans. I want to see it back on stage, but that's, that's kind of its whole thing. Next up, dear Evan Hansen. Now, truth be told, I quibbled about even including this one because much of it takes place outside of high school. But high school is such a significant component of the show. If you don't know this is a Tony Award winning, Olivier Award winning musical about a young student with anxiety who accidentally, accidentally finds himself embroiled in this lie about his late classmate Connor, who died by suicide and the extent to which they may have been friends. In reality, they weren't friends, but because of a letter that he was writing to himself as a part of a therapy exercise that Connor's parents found after Connor took it from him, they get the idea that him and Evan may have had this secret friendship. And Evan encourages that to try and comfort them about the death of their son. The whole thing spirals into this bigger and bigger lie. And many of the show's pivotal scenes take place in the high school environment. Waving through a window, you will be found. These take place in high school. A lot of the early exposition, however, there's so much more that we don't see. And when they adapted it for film, which I'll talk more about in a moment, we got to see more of that high school environment just because it was like naturalistically filmed so there were more students. But in the original production it was very dark, it was very bare, it was a very minimal cast. We didn't see other students. Interestingly enough, there has now been a UK tour non replica version of the show that has an ensemble on stage. So in those moments, like waving through a window, like you will be found, we do see other students walking around the corridors. But I think in terms of representing high school, you do still feel this lack of teachers. As a former educator, you start to wonder where all the educational professionals are when all of this is going on, like it gets to be a little bit dubious. There's a meeting in the principal's office. We don't see a principal. And it feels like Evan lacks this guidance and this support from the education system and maybe he didn't have that. But, you know, we don't see it because they're not really there. We don't see many of the students except for the key ones. And it's hard to get the sense of these students being isolated when they're the only people that we see, if that makes sense. So in terms of an accurate depiction of the high school experience, it also gets to feel a little bit far fetched in places. I'm going to give this one as low as a 2. The material I enjoy, I'm going to give this1a4. I've spoken more at length about my feelings on the dear Evan Hansen material. I do like the show. I like the show a lot more than a lot of people. Within the online musical theater community. There's been this Evan Hansen backlash for the way that it, you know, covers certain ground within the mental health conversation as well as for the character himself. I think he is very unfairly treated by musical theater fans who forget that he is at his core suicidal 16 year old and who among us did not make bad decisions when we were teenagers. But the score will be remembered as one of the great contemporary musical theater pop scores. It occasionally sounds a little bit like obvious uplifting Christian rock, but there's also a lot of. A lot of really great tunes in there as well. I. My thing with this material is I would love for it to address more of its own gray areas and really go there with the mental health stuff rather than trying to package this you will be found version of like it's gonna be okay, that's a little bit generic. I'm gonna give the material a four. Four for material, two for high school. And I mean well in terms of the success of the show. It won the Tony, it won the Olivier, it ran for a long time. The film came out and kind of deflated all of that. Because the film was not well received. That kind of changed the reputation of the show a little bit. The other factor here is that post pandemic, it felt as though audiences weren't as eager to go and see something that seemed as though it was going to be a little bit emotionally challenging. People wanted to go see positive, uplifting things. No one wanted to reflect on difficult mental health after years spent reflecting on their own difficult, turbulent mental health. However, now Evan Hansen is coming back because they have licensed non replica productions around the world. And unlike when Wicked did that, we're seeing more Evan Hansen's. Why? Because it's cheap to stage, it is a small cast, it is not that many sets, no one is flying, it doesn't have a massive ensemble, it's not fantastical. So there are Dear Evan Hansen productions right now touring the uk. There is one in Czechoslovakia, there is one in Germany, there is one happening in Sweden, there is one happening in Australia, there is one happening in South Africa. There are so many Dear Evan Hansen's, they're everywhere. There's one happening in the Netherlands as well, I believe. So in terms of success, it was huge. It had this one misstep and then it's getting big again. It's one of like the big musicals that I think we're gonna have to give this a 5 in terms of its global success. So what, that's a five, a four and two. That's 11 for dear Evan Hansen. Next up, everybody's talking about Jamie. This is an original British musical based on a documentary about a young queer teenager who just wants to go to his high school prom in drag and the struggle that he endures as a result of that decision. This takes place in Sheffield and it occurs within the school environment, but also within Jamie's home. That's kind of the dual focus of this plot is his school life and his home life with his single mother, Margaret. There's a beautiful amount of material between the two of them and the relationship that they have and this profound love that she has for her son as he is coming to terms with a lot of difficult realities. We meet one teacher whose name is Ms. Hedge. She's like the careers teacher, but she's also responsible for the prom. And she also calls him in like she seems to be running this entire school by herself. It's no wonder she can't sustain a relationship. And like many of the other shows in this list, it focuses on on the years when they are getting ready to leave the school environment. They're getting ready for prom, they're facing their futures, they're thinking about careers, they're coming to terms with the reality that, you know, they may not be as successful outside the school environment as they are in it. And we have a lot of different characters with different personalities to reflect that. It feels quite authentic to at least the British secondary school experience. I think I feel like I went to a school not unlike this and, you know, the reaction to him wanting to go to school in a dress is not, like, violent and shocked in the same way it is in a show like the Prom. Oh, I forgot about the Prom. Excuse me. Adding the prom to my list because while a couple of students are scandalized by it, a lot of them just don't really care. They're like, omg, that's major. Like, it feels quite honest to how that reaction would actually be. So I'm going to give this, you know, Ms. Hedge seems to be the only teacher working at this school, but otherwise I am going to give this, I think, a four. Like, we see them revising four exams, we see them planning promotions, we see them having lessons. This is a four for high school representation. And, you know, prom is a big part of the high school experience as well. We didn't have one, but that's fine. In terms of the show's impact and reach, it's done very well in the uk. It was in the West End for a long time. It's had a film adaptation, it's toured around the UK multiple times and I think will continue to do so. I think it's going to continue to enjoy a long and healthy life. There have started to be a couple of international productions. It went to the west coast of the US and never really managed to make it to Broadway. I don't know if it was too similar to the Prom, which had come a few years before. You know, you have these drag queen characters trying to help boost the confidence of a young queer person at high school who just wants to go to their prom. Authentically, it's the same kind of a story with some differences. So in terms of the success of Jamie within the uk, huge. Globally. Getting there. We're going to give this a three in terms of its impact, success and whatnot. School experience. We're going to give this A4. Material. I think we're also going to give this A3 as well. There's some songs I really love in this show and others that just feel a little bit like generic pop that don't theatricalize the moment as well as they could. Something like He's My Boy is a great song. And then you have some others in that score that just aren't quite as theatrically potent. Next up is Grease. This is classic high school set musical. It's more likely people know the film than the stage production. In fact, the film is based on a stage production that came first, which is actually very different. And because the film got so big, stage productions that came Afterwards had to make the decision, do they do the original material or do they adapt it to look and sound slightly more like the film? Because there are entire songs that people love in the film that just weren't in the original stage version. And people would go and see it and lose their minds. Some people still don't like it when Sandy isn't blonde, for crying out loud. People do not cope well with change. This much we know. Grease, of course, is set at Rydell High in Illinois. The team is the Rydell Rangers, and it's all about Danny Zuko and Sandy Dombrowski. They had this big summer romance and they reconnect when they are at school together. But even though, you know, he was very emotionally open and available to her over the summer, suddenly that's not a cool thing to do anymore. So he's, like, cold towards her in front of his friends so that he seems like this cool, tough guy. He is in a group in the stage version called, like, the Burger Palace Boys. In the film, they're the T Birds. The girls are the Pink Ladies. So we get this depiction of Clix. It's also set in the 50s. We see the politics of them getting ready to go to a dance and we see them at school, but more often than not, we see them hanging out after and around school and smoking and sitting in someone's car. Like, even though some of these characters are very driven by academic pursuits, we don't really get the opportunity to see that. So it's, you know, much like the Outsiders. It's a great story about young people and some of the stuff that they are dealing with. But we don't get school from it so much, even though that's technically what brings them all together. So I guess it's like a three in terms of high school authentic representation, because that is still the core of the show. But we don't see all that much of it. The success of the show is obviously huge. This is going to be a 5 out of 5. And the material is iconic, but not necessarily life changing. I will give this a 4, giving the show an overall score of 12. Interestingly enough, the stage version of Grease deals a lot more with, like, coming of age and sexual awakening. Like, it's a less depressing spring awakening in many ways than the film, which is a little bit of a sanitized version of that. Then we arrive at a show which was a film first and then got turned back into a film after becoming a very successful musical. I am talking about Hairspray immediately. This is going to get five out of five in terms of its success because it's become one of the really well known musicals. People know Phantom, people know Les Mis, people know HairSpray in the US in the UK, this show is huge. It's rumored to be heading back to Broadway soon. Director Jack O'Brien said that in an interview not too long ago. But it's based on the iconic campy film by John Waters. It's all about Tracy Turnblad, who is this high school student who longs to be a dancer on the Corny Collins Show. It is set in Baltimore, Maryland, at Patterson Park High School. And again, a little bit like Grace, not much of it takes place at the high school. Like, there are scenes at the high school and they play dodgeball and they go into detention and we see the high school environment and we see teachers, and again, that's the thing that brings them all together. But we're also constantly cutting class to go and dance on television. Because the show is not just about Tracy and it's not just about the boy that she likes and the girl that he's dating and her best friend. There is a bigger story being told here about integration between black and white dancers on television and segregation and racism in 1960s Baltimore. The show, which begins as campy and colorful and charming and silly, goes to some very sincere and profound places. That's my favorite thing about this show. The material is 5 out of 5. Hairspray is great. There are so many great songs in Hairspray. The script manages to do those two things very well. It delivers all of the necessary pathos and sincerity of discussing this important story and this important historical chapter. But it is also high camp, and high camp done very, very well. Brilliant script, great songs. Hairspray is a smash, and I feel like I have to give it the same high school representation rating as Grease. I mean, high school begins to feel like less and less of a factor as we go on in Hairspray. So, honestly, I feel like it could be a 2, which again, gives this a score of 12. Tying for the lead. That brings us to Heathers. Now, this is a lot of people's favorite high school set musical. It is based on the cult film of the same name. And it had a little Off Broadway life around a decade ago. And then a few years later, after becoming quite popular online, it opened in London, hugely popular there. Transferred to the West End, did a UK tour, came back to the West End, did another tour, back to a different theatre in the West End, back to The Other palace, another theatre in the West End, another UK tour. Heathers has been huge here. It has been so popular in the uk and now that successful UK production is heading back Stateside. It hasn't yet been confirmed whether it's going to run on or off Broadway. I've made a video about my theories behind all of this. But Heathers has become this cultural phenomenon and even though it had a much bigger life in the uk, a lot of dedicated US musical theatre fans still know that Heathers is a musical. And it gets done in American high schools. It's been done in South America, it's been done on Riverdale, it has penetrated the Zeitgeist and it's had, like, limited Western runs. It has never been in awards contention, it has never made it to Broadway. So we're giving this four out of five for, like, global success. But watch that space. In terms of its New York return, it's also helped the show to consistently be associated with a lot of really big breakout stars like Ryan McCarten and Barrett Wilbert Weed in the New York production, Carrie Hope Fletcher and Jamie Moscato. In London, Hannah Lowther. More recently, a lot of brilliant talent has come through Heathers. My good friend, Jacob Fowler. Like so many great people, Heather's, of course, takes place in Sherwood, Ohio. The high school is Westerberg, the team is the Rottweilers, and we have multiple teachers, we have classes. But the story that I haven't actually told you yet is about Veronica Sawyer, a young girl who, again, is, like, struggling amongst all of these different cliques. And she just longs for security and protection from the bullies of her high school halls, who she has noticed becoming more and more mean towards each other since they were all in kindergarten together. Until she can graduate, she finds that protection in the Heathers, a trio of popular girls who all share the same name. They take her in, they turn her into one of them, and a little bit like in another show that we'll get to momentarily, she loses a bit of herself in the process. But this one is also dark because there is another student at the school named Jason Dean. She becomes involved with him romantically and he starts trying to convince her that they need to take matters into their own hands when it comes to exacting justice on, you know, their unkind classmates. This starts as an accident, but soon becomes super deliberate. And I do like the material in Heather's. I think people fall into two camps in the uk. There are people who love Heathers, really, really love Heather's and there are people who are a little bit sick of Heather's because it kept coming back. But I still think it's a really great show. There is a reason it's so popular. I think it's got great material. There's some really great songs that people are going to continue to sing for, like, the rest of time. And it balances campy and dark and edgy, but it feels like it captures the teen voice very well. And it does an interesting thing, which it shows the adolescent perspective on teachers, where the teachers are a little bit ludicrous and a little bit indifferent to the needs of the students and what they're trying to convey to them. But in terms of how it displays cliques, like it's this slightly heightened, dramatic, dark version of it all. But again, there's an honesty and an authenticity to that also. So what scores are we giving Heathers here? I'm gonna say five for its material. I really like the Heather's material, and I think four for the High School Experience depiction, giving it a total score of 13. Oh, my gosh. Heathers is winning so far. I don't know what you expected is Heather's the best High School Musical? Well, there is also High School Musical. Now, don't shoot me. I have seen High School, the film. I have seen the second one. I have not seen seen the third one. I've also never seen it on stage, and I feel like a lot of people haven't seen it on stage. It's really still best known as a film. It has been produced live on stage, but I don't know much about that version. And so, on balance, while I wanted to address it within this video, I don't feel like it can really be a factor here because it would get marked down for its success, because the stage version hasn't been that widespread or that prevalent or that successful, even though the film is huge. And when we say High School Musicals, you're going to think about High School Musical like it's a win in branding, if nothing else. But instead, we are going to move on to a very popular entrant, which is Mean Girls. So this is the musical adaptation of the early 2000s film created by Tina Fey that shares a lot of crossover in its plot with Heathers, because it's about a transfer student named Cady Heron, who, on the suggestion of her brand new friends, Janice and Damien, becomes an infiltrating member of the Plastics. The Plastics are the trio of popular girls at this particular school, this particular school being North Shore High school. Their mascot is the Lions, and this is taking place again in Illinois. So many of these high schools are in Illinois. What's going on in that state? Now, the Plastics are run by Regina George, who is this iconic queen bitch, not unlike Heather Chandler in Heather's. And Cady manages to topple her through a series of schemes, but then, you guessed it, ends up becoming just like her. Katie's driving motivation here is how enamored she is with a senior student in her math class named Aaron Samuels. I like how many classes we get to see. I like how much it talks about the high school experience. This is like 5 out of 5 in terms of high school representation. And it's not all completely honest. Like, it's heightened and it's campy and it's dramatic and, you know, the bus drivers need to be suspended and, like, reviewed because there's some very dangerous buses in both the film and the musical. But I think this show and the film and this story has always done a great job in terms of exposing what it actually feels like to be in that high school environment. You know, Katie is arriving from a background of having been homeschooled growing up in Africa, and she likens it all to this jungle landscape where you have a food chain and you have preys and predators and people like, attacking each other. And that's not. That's not unrealistic. And the Burn book is this physical manifestation of all of the mean things that people say about each other. Now, the material in Mean Girls, I'm going to give a three. There's a lot of bangers in there. There's a lot of great songs. There's a lot of great melodies. Some of the lyrics tend to hold it back, I think, a little bit. There are just a few too many dubious lyrics in Mean Girls. And there are some moments where the songs are just serviceable rather than being really great. A lot of these shows and a lot of other shows have, like, we're at a house party songs. And the one in Mean Girls, Whose House is this, is truly the worst of all of them. And I'm constantly wondering, with a song like World Burn, is it a great song or is it just really high and thrillingly sung? And, I don't know, you know, but then something like, I'd rather be me. That's a great song. And you know what else? I just love that this show involves a lot of math that just makes me happy. I'm sorry. I won't apologize. In fact. And it's a three for the overall success of the show. It opened on Broadway, it closed due to the pandemic and it never really recovered from that. It's toured the US and it's going to be one of these popular shows. I think it's going to be really popular in the West End. It recently opened at the Savoy Theatre in London. It's going to be huge over here. And you know, it still has yet to overtake the success of the film that it's based on, which something like Hairspray kind of became better known for the musical. And then the movie adaptation of the musical Mean Girls, interestingly enough, has had a similar journey where the musical version of the film has been turned into a musical film, but that has done nothing to eclipse the original film and it wasn't super popular again. I reviewed it here on YouTube if you want to know what I thought. So we're giving that a three. So what? That was a five, a three and a three. That gets it again. Eleven. Now I said I would put the prom on this list. On reflection, I think we're just going to skip over the prom. It does a really similar thing to Everybody's talking about Jamie and I feel pretty similarly about the material. But the prom's focus is honestly on the characters who come into that environment and like it features the ones who are at high school, but it's too tangential to the plot. Same with something like A Cruel Intentions. Like yes, technically they are all in high school while all of this is going on, but it's so secondary to everything that the musical is focusing on. We're gonna finish, however, with one you might not have considered and it didn't occur to me until very late on in making this list and that is yous Lie in April. Now this is based on the manga and subsequent anime of the same name. This is a musical featuring a score by Frank Wildhorn. It was recently seen in the West End in a production that was sadly short lived because it didn't really manage to find the audience that it deserved. I've talked about it again here on YouTube and I've reviewed the show. I really loved this show and there was an awful lot to love about. Tells the story of Kosei Arima, a very gifted young pianist in Japan who after the death of his very strict piano playing mother, finds he is no longer able to hear the music of the piano, which is why he no longer plays. His friendship group welcomes a new addition. She is a competitive violinist and she manages to persuade him to play with her, he comes to find out that this has been an elaborate scheme of hers all along, and she actually knows who he is. It's a beautiful and ultimately very sad story about, like, the healing power of music and how people come together through. Through that. It is set in Sumiya Junior High School in West Tokyo, and we see a lot of the high school experience. We also see a lot of this competitive musician world. Increasingly, we spend more and more of our time there. But the driving force for these characters throughout the show is the idea of getting scholarships to go on to further and higher education, and the idea of, like, what Kosei is going to do with his future if he doesn't pursue music. And so his friends are all trying to encourage him to do that. His friends are trying to get sports scholarships or academic scholarships. It's like, it's a very big impetus for all of these characters. So you have the character of Watari, who is this big sports star at school. The thing is, is a lot of the school material actually got cut from the show, I think, during its early previews in the West End. But it was seen in a concert version, which I also loved earlier this year. Like, there was a football song that Watari sang that was removed ultimately from the West End version. And they have songs in it where all of the characters in the school environment are like, this is our time. This is our chance. Like, April's almost here. What are our futures going to be? And that is not my favorite material in the show. I like the introspective material sung by our lead characters. I love the song. Just like a movie. I love Where's My Superhero. I love the duets that they sing. It's classic Frank Wildhorn. It's. It's beautiful. And it, you know, it brings manga and anime and those extreme emotions and the beauty of that and the grace and elegance of that to the stage very well, I think. But does it do the high school thing? Well, I don't know. Like, we feel a lot of the angst and the turbulent emotions of what they are facing and the uncertainty about the future and kind of the fear of all of that. But it's not really the driving force for the show, and it's also not my favorite part of the material. So on balance, we're going to be very balanced here. I think the material is a three in that regard. The success of the show, sadly, it's thus far had this one unsuccessful West End production. It's been more successful in Asia. So, you know, it's not a carry, we'll give it a 2. Based on that, we'll give it a 3 for the material. We'll probably give it a 3 for the high school experience as well, giving it a total score of 8. Which means we are now able to say which is, by this criteria, the best high school set musical of all times. Drumroll, please. And the winner is Heather's with 13 points. Heather's seems to be quantifiably, based on that system, the best high school set musical that we have thus far. Now, if there are any I have egregiously missed from this list, comment down below. Comment all of your many disagreements with the rankings I have given things I know that there are people who are going to wildly disagree with the numbers I've given in this video. Share your thoughts in the comments and feel free to send this video to another musical theatre loving friend so that they can agree or get angry about it as well. In the meantime, thank you so much for watching this video. I hope that you have enjoyed. If you did, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel for more videos just like this as well as more theatre reviews and theatre trip vlogs coming very soon. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a Stagey Day. For 10 more seconds. I'm Minky Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.