Jocelyn Bioh’s “School Girls” officially opens on Broadway to glowing reviews

On the evening of September 28, the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre of Manhattan Theatre Club hosted the official premiere of Jocelyn Bioh’s “School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play”, directed by Whitney White — and the first critical reactions are more than encouraging, as Playbill reports.

The play, set at the Aburi girls’ boarding school in Ghana in 1986, follows a group of girls competing for the Miss Ghana title until the arrival of a new student from America upsets the calculations. Whitney White, who had also directed Bioh’s “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” on Broadway in 2023, returns at the helm of a cast including Patina Miller, Denée Benton as “queen bee” Paulina, Jasmine Amy Rogers as Ericka, Erin Morton, Nia Otchere-Sarfo, Jordan Rice, Heather Alicia Simms and Lucia Aremu.

Critics place the show in the category of sharp comedies that use the “mean girls” formula to talk about serious themes: Western colonial beauty standards, class and identity. Greg Evans of Deadline, quoted by BroadwayWorld, writes that “the cruelties come fast and cut deep” in the Ghanaian school canteen, while the New York Theatre Guide critic praises the energy of White’s direction and the cast’s comic timing.

Particular praise has gone to Denée Benton as Paulina — “cruel and at the same time fragile” — and to Jasmine Amy Rogers, who “brings the house down with song” in the choral scene, according to the BroadwayWorld review.

“School Girls” had its world premiere Off-Broadway at MCC Theater in 2017 and has since played regional theaters across America; the Broadway debut comes late but with its “comic muscles” intact. The show runs through November 1 at the Friedman Theatre.