Get in loser, because the Mean Girls directors have announced an Los Angeles-based acting camp for teens.
Co-directors of the new film reboot, Arturo Perez Jr. and Samantha Jayne, announced Wednesday a two-week acting course that caters to teens ages 14 to 17 in underserved communities. The boot camp hopes to build confidence while providing acting tools for the young performers.
“Like Janis says in the opening of our movie, it’s not easy making a movie, but we also know that it’s not easy getting the confidence to just go for it as an actor, either,” Jayne tells Rolling Stone in a statement.
The camp will take place at a downtown Los Angeles theater from Aug. 5 to Aug. 16 and builds on ‘The Yes Bus’ philosophy, a listening and positive reinforcement-based workshop. It’s a skillset the directors say they used while filming the Mean Girls musical movie.
“We practiced The Yes Bus with every collaborator on Mean Girls, from Tina to our department heads to our actors,” Jayne says. “It’s simply about fully listening to each others’ ideas and understanding that we all have something special and unique to contribute. You bring people into the fold for a reason, and listening and trusting each other can only bring the vision to life in the best way.”
Within the first week, students will participate in acting and writing seminars. In week two, they will showcase a performance.
“Together, we’ve been dreaming of creating this camp since we arrived in L.A. 10 years ago,” Jayne adds. “But for Arturo, it’s been a mission since he experienced a profound shift in his life when he began taking drama classes as a teen.”
Hardened by his upbringing, Perez hopes the program will give kids, like himself, an opportunity to attend and benefit from a drama class.
“I remember I was in theater, and I didn’t feel like a theater kid,” Perez says to Rolling Stone. “But then once I broke through, and my mom forced me into acting school I loved it because you could talk about your feelings in acting school. It was like the first time that it was okay to talk about your feelings and I came from Mexico City — not the nice part. So for me, it helped with everything.”
Perez and Jayne made their directorial debut with Mean Girls, adding an internet-savvy twist to the early 2000s high school dramedy. Prior to Mean Girls, the two worked on the FX short form series Quarter Life Poetry, which Jayne wrote and starred in. Although Rolling Stone’s David Fear called the Mean Girls musical’s TikTok references and faux-phone recordings a “crutch” and felt the musical numbers “would have benefited from a bit more visual breathing room,” the co-directors have defended the film, saying theymade the entire film on TikTok they could have.
“This is for the kids,” Perez previously told Rolling Stone. “Let’s let the kids decide.”
Applications for the acting camp open Wednesday, Jan. 24 and close Wednesday, June 5.