“Girls Night: The Musical,” a musical about five friends and their night at a karaoke bar, is on tour and coming to Syracuse on Jan. 18. The musical includes popular songs from the 1980s and 1990s like, “It’s Raining Men” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” The show will be at The Oncenter Civic Center Theater at 7:30 p.m.

Leslie McQueen started out as a performer in the production and is now the assistant director of the show. The Daily Orange spoke to McQueen about the challenges of assistant directing “Girls Night: The Musical,” as well as its appeal to audiences.

The Daily Orange: Could you tell me about your experience as assistant director of “Girls Night: The Musical?”

Leslie McQueen: I started with the production as a performer in 2009. And within the first year of being with them, I actually did three of the five roles and quickly became close with the director and the technical director. I relocated from Florida, where I started the show, to New York. Then after that I moved into the assistant director position.

The D.O.: Could you talk briefly about the plot and musical numbers in the production?

LM: They are celebrating a bachelorette party, essentially, for one of their daughters. There are five girlfriends. They’ve been friends since childhood, and one of them has a daughter who just got engaged, and so they’re all celebrating together. It is a very, very fun time. There’s some heartwarming moments. There’s a lot of laughter. There’s a little bit of drama, but it’s mostly just a good time.

There’s a lot of amazing, fun get-up-and-dance numbers: “I Will Survive,” “It’s Raining Men,” “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” We love to get the audience up and dancing and singing and just enjoying the evening with us.

The D.O.: The production is on tour, right?

LM: Yes. It is a little bit of a sporadic tour. They will actually be in Syracuse and Tampa this next weekend, and they are coming from California.

The D.O.: What has been the most difficult part about assistant directing the production?

LM: A lot of times we are training one or two cast members at a time, and I would say that’s the biggest challenge. The show is about five very close girlfriends, and it is a lot harder to teach when you’re teaching only one or two of them to sort of put into a group.

The D.O.: What aspects of the production do you think audiences will connect to most?

L.M.: Most people, after seeing the show, either come up and say, “You know, I have all these friends from college or from high school or from my adult life, and I’m you, and my friend is you.” So, I think between that and then seeing the people you love in the characters that we play.

They’re all sort of caricatures of actual people. And so, you know, we’ll have people come up and say, “My mom was just like you,” or “My sister was just like you” or “I lost my best friend in high school, and she was just like you.” And so, I think it really touches to the heart of women and the women’s relationship – the one that we share as sisters and as friends.

I think it really speaks to women. And I think for the men who come, it’s a good insight. It’s a little bit of an insight into being part of the women’s table if you’ve never been part of that before. But it’s also sort of seeing what it’s like to be at the heart of a sisterhood where things happen, and you forgive and you move on and you laugh and you cry, but you do it all together.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Published on January 15, 2020 at 10:32 pm

Contact Mandy: ackrayna@syr.edu | @MandyKraynak