'Mean Girls’ in Ghana, and how skin color in Africa determines who’s at the top of the pecking order

The play “School Girls; or the African Mean Girls Play” is set at a boarding school in Ghana. There is a queen bee, her gang of loyal followers, and a new girl who shakes up the pecking order. The girls are competing to become Miss Ghana. An American-born, half-white girl arrives, and the pageant recruiter calls her more “universally appealing” than the other girls. You can see the play now through September 30 at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.

L-R: Abena Mensah-Bonsu, Mirirai Sithole, Paige Gilbert, Joanna A. Jones,

MaameYaa Boafo and Latoya Edwards in the MCC Theater

production of “School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play.”

L-R: Joanna A. Jones and MaameYaa Boafo in “School Girls;

Or, the African Mean Girls Play.”

MaameYaa Boafo in “School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play.”