My ab muscles are sore, and trust me it's not from working out. I'll be honest I didn't have high expectations for the drag makeover edition of Mean Girls put together by Haus of Ham.  I assumed it'd be just another show put together quickly that would leave me yearning for more.  I have never been so thrilled to be wrong.

The show got off on the right foot by starting on time! (Alright, so it was 13 mintues off, but even The Wilma theatre has an 8 minutes scheduled hold.) A perfectly imagined (read: dressed in a lepord print dress) Cady Heron, played by Sapphira Crystal, walks on the stage and re-enacts a flawless introduction to her charachter using the dialouge we all know by heart.  The bar is set high for the rest of the evening because Sapphira knows her shit, her lipsync is on point and she's ready to work the stage. 

As the evening progresses at rapid pace it becomes clear that someone made one amazing dialouge track for the show.  It cut the parts nobody cares about, and added perfectly timed pop culture references and song cuts that kept the packed house (standing room only!) on their toes waiting for the next "lol" moment. I mean real "lol", not the kind you send to that guy you've been trying to blow off for 2 weeks but don't have the balls to say "bye felicia" to. 

We (the audience) were quickly introduced to the rest of the cast.  

 

• Sutton Fearce and Eric Jaffe teamed up to make the dynamic duo of Janice and Damian a refreshing blend of talent and stoopid, while maintaining characther. 
• Ryan Wyrofsky slid into his shortest shorts to play a much gayer (and probably more realistic) Aaron Samules, if you should be upset about missing anything about this show, it should be Ryans Twilight crop top and lollipop licking skills. 
• Bev took on the more challening role of creating two distinct chachaters Miss Norbury/Mrs. George and she nailed it, giving us two distinct and iconic looks accompanied with charactherization. 

 

And then we have the Plastics… Regina George (Lili St. Queer) Gretchen Weiners (Mistor Fahrenheit) and Karen Smith (Aurora Whoreialis) These women worked together to serve the perfect amount of sass and humour without upstaging each other, or the other cast members.  The most memorable moment of the evening was the plastics asking the iconic line to a dark skined Saphirra "if you're from africa, why arn't you black" the audience lost their shit. 

The other stand out moments came from the actor monologues that cleverly filled time to disguise costume changes.  Eric Jaffe told storys of when he was too gay to function and Reginia George read pages from the gayborhood burn book.  

The audience gave the show a well deserved standing ovation.  What I found most enjoyable was the time and effort put into props and transitions.  Watching the actors run into the "wings" of the theatre to check lines, check upcoming scenes and preparing for what's about to happen really made a huge difference. 

"Props" to Franky Bradley's for keeping and maintaining a perfect space for more theatrical shows, from what I gathered there wasn't a bad seat in the hosue. 

Haus of Ham is here to stay an I lookforward to what's coming next, my vote is for a Harry Potter Drag Edition!  Check out their facebook here!