Pompano Beach Theatre Stages Its Own African Mean Girls Play Days Before Broadway

A South Florida nonprofit theatre company is about to share the stage, in a sense, with Broadway. Brévo Theatre opens its South Florida premiere of “Schoolgirls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play” on September 3 at the Pompano Beach Cultural Center, kicking off a run that will overlap with the same play's Broadway previews just days later in New York City.

Manhattan Theatre Club begins Broadway previews of “Schoolgirls” on September 8 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, according to Broadway News. That production, directed by Whitney White, features stage names including Patina Miller, Denée Benton and Jasmine Amy Rogers, and is produced in association with Chase This Productions and Susan Kelechi Watson, as detailed in casting announcements shared by Broadway.com. Zaylin Yates, Brévo's founding managing director, said the company is delighted that its own production and the Broadway staging will run at the same time, according to The Miami Times.

An All-Women Team Brings Ghana to Pompano Beach

Brévo's production, per the same account, was assembled with an all-women cast, director and production team. The play, written by Jocelyn Bioh, is set in 1986 at an elite all-girls boarding school in Ghana and centers on Paulina, the reigning queen bee at Aburi Girls' Boarding School, whose bid for the Miss Ghana pageant is upended by the arrival of an American exchange student named Ericka, who also enters the competition. The story includes five students competing for the pageant crown, and cast members named in the Miami Times report include Naomi Ray Barnett and Sarah Romeo, both playing classmates.

The comedy uses an 1980s sitcom-style presentation, the report notes, and explores race, identity, beauty standards, economic status and colorism, while also addressing more universal themes of beauty pressure, expectations, confidence and sisterhood. Yates said the production aims to appeal to the community at large, and has argued the play should stand on its own rather than be compared with “Mean Girls,” even though Schoolgirls does parallel the 2004 film, which itself was inspired by Rosalind Wiseman's book “Queen Bees and Wannabes.”

From a Broadway Rejection to a New Mission

Brévo Theatre had originally sought the rights to Jocelyn Bioh's “Jaja's African Hair Braiding,” the play that marked Bioh's own Broadway debut in October 2023 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, where it earned a Tony Award nomination, according to reporting from The Washington Post. Instead, the company was offered “Schoolgirls,” a play that first opened Off-Broadway in 2017 and has since found success in theaters around the world, earning a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble and an Outstanding Play nomination, as noted by Broadway News.

Brévo continued its mission of presenting stories that entertain audiences while sparking meaningful conversations, and the company wanted to highlight Black women in the arts through the choice, per the Miami Times account. The company chose “Schoolgirls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play” as part of its season theme, and cast member Yesenia Ozuna was already familiar with the play before joining the production.

A Season Built on HBCU Roots and Community Programming

Brévo Theatre was co-founded as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit by Zaylin Yates and Terrence Pride while the two were students at Florida A&M University, according to WLRN. The company has since become a Carbonell-nominated and Silver Palm Award-winning regional organization based in South Florida, per its own account on Brévo Theatre's website.

“Schoolgirls” follows on the heels of Brévo's South Florida premiere of “The Color Purple: The Musical,” which the company staged at the Pompano Beach Cultural Center in June and July and which received a positive audience response, according to South Florida Insider. Beyond its mainstage shows, Brévo also runs “Young, Gifted and Brave,” an intensive summer theatre training program for youth ages 14 to 22 across South Florida, per WLRN's reporting.

Showtimes, Tickets and Social Sundays

Performances run Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 3 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m. at the Pompano Beach Cultural Center, located at 50 W. Atlantic Blvd. in Pompano Beach. Tickets start at $55, and information is available at www.brevotheatre.org.

Following Sunday performances, Brévo has scheduled “Social Sundays,” post-show events inviting audiences to eat, drink and interact with the cast, according to details listed by the City of Pompano Beach. For South Florida theatergoers, it offers a chance to see the same story reaching Broadway audiences, staged intimately and close to home.