"Vanities: The Musical"
Meadow Brook Theatre
Rochester, Mich.
March 28, 2025
Female friendships have long been a source of power for women and fascination for many. Stories like “Sex and the City” and “Wicked” (remember all of 2024?!) continue to find relevancy and mass popularity decades after their releases as they explore the complexities and strength of female relationships. Throw in some catchy tunes and span it across the second half of 20th-century America, and you have “Vanities: The Musical.”
With a book by Jack Heifner and music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum, the show originally opened off Broadway in 2009, based on Heifner’s 1976 play. It made its Michigan premiere this month at Meadow Brook Theatre, directed by Travis Walter, and will be playing at the theater until April 13.
The show follows the lives of three best friends as they grow from dreaming high school cheerleaders to college sorority sisters to young adults to middle-aged women, spanning from the 1960s-'90s. Kathy (Katherine Alexis Thomas) is an organizer whose life gets turned upside down when her carefully laid plans go awry. Mary (Em Hadick) is a free-spirited rebel, embracing liberal feminist values and free love, in sharp contrast to Joanne (Caroline Moulios), staunch in her conservative beliefs and homemaker role.
While the show bills itself as a celebration of friendship, I was more intrigued by its representation of the evolving roles and freedoms experienced by women between the 1960s-1990s. As the show begins, the girls sing about their boyfriends, football games and school dances. They look forward to their American dreams of marriage and homemaking. From there, the story touches on major occurrences in both American and women’s history, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the introduction of birth control pills and the legalization of abortion. You watch as their childhood values are challenged, with some embracing those changes more easily than others.
As a Millennial woman, I find it can be easy to take our modern feminist rights and expectations for granted (though perhaps less so now). While we still have a long way to go, we grew up with far more opportunities and fewer gender barriers than our mothers and foremothers did, encouraged to break the glass ceiling and be independent. Watching “Vanities,” I felt a new understanding of Baby Boomer women, raised with a promise of some domestic ideal that – at least in this show – doesn’t pan out. Even the ones who more easily break from the mold do so with some hesitancy; there’s a little bit of envy in each of them as they experience the roads not taken through the lens of their friends.
The cast was fun and engaging. Hadick had beautiful vocals, particularly showcased in “Fly into the Future,” and was strong as the sophisticated, liberated woman coming to terms with rejecting the expectations set by her mother and society. Moulios was not a strong singer but more than made up for it with her acting, dancing and charisma. Thomas was steady as the balance and calm between the two, quietly and frequently re-evaluating her own life after rejecting the controlling nature of her youth.
The production was thoughtful and smooth as it transitioned between different periods in the women’s lives. Using open, mirrorless “vanities” and nearby closets, the women change their clothes and wigs on stage to denote the new era, including nostalgic full skirts, shift dresses, '60s bouffants, '90s bobs and more (and all while singing about the popular brands they were using at the time, which was fun). The cheerleading dance routines – led by noticeably trained and star dancer Moulios – were energetic and soothingly balanced, no easy feat for trios.
I also enjoyed the music, which featured upbeat, pop-style show tunes with inspirations from their respective decades.
Overall, “Vanities” was an entertaining, charming show about female experiences and an interesting look at a crucial period of change for women.
