You might be familiar with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies—hopefully more as a book than as individual concepts. Pride is okay in small doses, and, while prejudice might be more common than zombies, neither is particularly pleasant. What is drastically more pleasant is the upcoming release of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls, a fun depiction the North Shore you remember but in iambic pentameter. It’s not like a regular book. It’s a cool book*.
Mean Girls has always been a cult classic. Now it’s well on its way to becoming a cult(ure) classic: after premiering in Washington, D.C. back in Fall 2017, Mean Girls made its broadway debut on April 8th, 2018. Since then, this hilarious tale of adolescence has come to esteemed venues in Philadelphia and Boston. Soon, it’ll be coming to a bookshelf near you.
That is the question!
Image Via The Daily Dot. Edited with befunky.
Playwright Ian Doescher will adapt the film into Shakespearean language, drawing upon his experience writing Elizabethan adaptations of various Star Wars plots. Obviously, there’s one major problem with this choice of author: he isn’t Tina Fey. Since he’s been open about his sensitivity towards writing a woman-centric story, we’ll try not to hold that against him. To portray the female cast with as much nuance as possible, he’s incorporated elements of female Shakespeare characters into their design. He opened up about who’s who in Philadelphia Magazine:
Cady Heron is Miranda in the Tempest where she’s talking this brave new world and she’s an innocent in the ways of the world. Janis Ian is Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing — she’s sharp tongued and fiercely loyal.
Usually, when it comes to adaptations, we ask ourselves whether or not the movie will be like the book—in this case, we have to wonder whether the book will be like the movie. Aside from the iambic pentameter, yes. Doescher has clarified that the only major changes he’s made to the plot were incorporated solely “for the play’s staging.” Does this vaguely allude to how Doescher will arrange the ‘hit by a bus’ scene? There’s really only one way to find out.
How much money would I spend to get this now instead of April 23, its release date? The limit does not exist.
*Note that we at Bookstr, on principle, think that all books are cool.
Featured Image Via Bustle.