Spice World: A Live Reading
Tattooed Mom
530 South St.
Philadelphia
March 11, 2025
Growing up, I staged elaborate concerts, usually in my imagination or at my best friend Cheri's house. The soundtrack was always the same: I would blast my favorite Spice Girls' songs on high volume and sing along, even when the people around me covered their ears.
The Spice Girls, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time, were my first obsession. The British pop singers from the ‘90s taught me that as a young girl, I contained multitudes; like, I could be sporty and scary. When I heard that Theatre Contra was staging a live reading of the Spice Girls’ first (and only) feature-length film, Spice World, I had to go.
For one night only, the Spice Girls were returning to the stage. Or rather, Spice Girl caricaturists were gathering on the second floor of hipster bar, Tattooed Mom, to take us back in time.
Theatre Contra made sure we, the audience, welcomed the pop stars by waving Union Jack flags. We were given personal autograph cards to collect signatures from a diverse and gender fluid cast eager to reprise the iconic performances that had first put so many of us in touch with camp. Soon, the main cast of Spice World, aka Scary, Sporty, Baby, Ginger and Posh Spice, all appeared; dashing to the front of the room from the loo, which worked as a stand-in stage curtain.
I could easily stream Spice World on my own in my apartment. But how often does one get the opportunity to get drunk in a crowded room full of queer people who, like me, are still down with the Spice Girls?
John Waters once infamously opined on the dichotomy of good bad taste and bad bad taste. I arrived at Tattooed Mom with an unreliable memory of the movie and hoping to encounter the former. For those of you not familiar with this idea, Waters describes good bad taste as “creatively nauseating, but must…appeal to the especially twisted sense of humor, which is anything but universal.”
Eight-year-old me would have been dismayed to learn that the Spice Girls did not actually have universal appeal. This five-member girl group from the UK celebrating “girl power” took over my whole world. I would watch VH1 for hours until one of their music videos played.
I learned to dance by copying the moves from the music video for their second-ever single “Say You’ll Be There,” embodying badass stage presence and brazen sexiness (the aforementioned “girl power”) before I even knew what sex was!
This horrified the grown-ups around me, as well as adults all over America, apparently. I remember driving with my older cousin as she told me that the Spice Girls “are sluts” when I popped my CD in. I barely noticed as my parents sat by “creatively nauseated” while I bopped along having the time of my life. Too young to fully grasp what I was doing, I taught myself to disregard others' opinions and lean towards what intuitively piqued my interests.
Besides, it was the ‘90s! The production team behind Spice World knew their job was to make a movie to promote the Spice Girls’ music and appeal to a very young demographic. However, perched on the floor, way too close to the television, I observed mostly canned dialogue and negligible commitment to plot. Even in 1997, I somehow grasped that Spice World purposely prioritized stylization and product placements over substance.
At the time, I didn’t care. I still got to hang out parasocially with my favorite pop stars, all of whom played caricatures of their constructed public personas.
Theatre Contra’s reimagining of Spice World as a staged live reading made a brilliant satire of a satire that played heavily on that artistic and commercial disparity. The show appealed to the grown-up versions of the little girls, gays, and theys, who as children had been the movie’s target demographic.
The actors completely bulldozed the fourth wall, dancing up close with us as we sat at tables or stood crowded in the back. A girl in the front row was given pink glasses to play Elton John, who had a cameo in the movie’s very first scene. By act two, I, admittedly a bit tipsy, became so committed that I almost felt like a part of the show. When the cast lip-synced to Wannabe, Too Much, or Stop, I was singing along, re-experiencing the innocence I had as a kid listening to their music.
Looking around, I realized that we — cast, crew, onlookers — were no longer bedroom impersonators. This generation of Spice Girl stans had blossomed into all the things the female pop stars had let us imagine one day becoming. More than Sporty, Posh, or Baby, we were queer, drunk, unapologetic.
I could probably never sit through a full showing of Spice World again, but after experiencing Theatre Contra’s live version, do I really need to?
I am excited about checking out Theatre Contra's next shows to see what cult hits they cover next. In April, they will be performing a live reading of another cult classic film, Point Break, and in May they will stage a live reading of the entire Twilight saga. They’ve also covered many icons through their Reading Series, including National Treasure, Face/Off, and Carrie.
