‘Mean Girls’

When: Opens Tuesday and runs through March 5. Showtimes 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday; 7:30 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. March 3;

2 and 8 p.m. March 4; 1 and 6:30 p. m. March 5

Where: San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 Third Ave., San Diego

Tickets: $39-$114

Online: broadwaysd.com

themselves: Amanda Seyfried (“The Dropout,” “Mank”), Lacey Chabert (choose your Hallmark movie), Rachel McAdams (“The Notebook,” “Doctor Strange”) and Lizzy Caplan (“Masters of Sex”). Fey also appeared as a school math teacher, and her frequent co-star and friend Amy Poehler played Regina’s mother, June George.

The musical “Mean Girls” features English Bernhardt as Cady with Nadina Hassan as Regina.

Nicholaw had no doubt the movie would translate well to the musical stage.

“It has Tina Fey as a book writer, that tells you something,” he said. “I knew that with her writing it, it would be fast-paced and have lots of laughs in it.”

He enjoyed choreographing the show at its conception, in spite of the fact that it was a departure from productions for which he’d created dance before.

“It’s not necessarily the style that I live in,” Nicholaw said. “I was able to do it and have a good time doing it. I kept it really percussive. It goes with my tap background.”

Tap choreography was a staple of Nicholaw’s work on past productions of “Spamalot” and “Something’s Rotten!”

For Nicholaw, the appeal of both “Mean Girls” the film and this musical iteration is its relatability.

“Everyone had to go to high school,” he said. “Everyone got picked on in one way or another, whether by someone else or you’re picking on yourself. To be able to show that with humor and recognize the humanity in the humor is universal.”