Column: Spotlight on ‘cool moms’ in Paramount Theatre’s ‘Mean Girls’ production
Oh, to be the cool mom.
Women with kids all want that description after their name, right? Even those of us Baby Boomers recognized the difference between the “good” mothers and those who carried a certain aura about them. More fun. More creative. More involved in their kids’ lives — and more confident not just in how they handle parenthood but how they go about doing life in general.
Cool moms have been the talk of the Paramount Theatre ever since “Mean Girls” opened on the downtown Aurora stage. The comically cool mom in Tina Fey’s hit musical is “queen bee” Regina George’s mother June — an iconic character brought to life by Amy Poehler in the 2004 hit movie of the same name that satirizes superficial parenting.
There’s plenty of stellar reviews about this latest Paramount production, including the performance of Veronica Garza, who not only plays this outlandish mom in the regional premiere of “Mean Girls,” she has the challenging task of switching wigs and personalities to play Cady Heron’s mother as well as a high school math teacher.
And the Paramount added more chatter to the topic by sponsoring a “Cool Mom Not a Regular Mom” contest that, via Garza in a fun promo I watched half a dozen times, invited people to submit nominations for mothers who fit that description.
More than 200 entries came in. And after a group of cool moms who work at the Paramount went through them all, the title went to 39-year-old Geneva resident Liz Jochum, who told me she first watched the movie at 17 and was “absolutely a big fan from the get-go,” still quoting “the movie today in everyday life.”
Cassie Sneed, who nominated Jochum, noted in her short but sassy essay that her friend Liz has been repeating lines from the show “before it was fetch.”
Sneed — what do you bet she’s also pretty cool — took advantage of that and other “Mean Girls” catchphrases familiar to most females born between 1985 and 2001. For example, she described Jochum — the mother of twin boys who works full-time in the medical profession — as an “apex predator but the kind you want in your corner.”
Sneed also credits her friend for keeping a calendar “more organized than the Burn Book” and as “the only human on this Earth” who could get her to run a sprint triathlon.
“I did not want to. She said get in loser. We’re going running. And reader, I went,” Sneed wrote, also adding that Jochum has wanted to see this musical forever and “if anyone has earned tickets and a drink, it’s the woman holding it all together while still being the most lighthearted, fun person I know.”
That’s pretty much how Garza describes her own mother, Pamela — “sparkly and fun and colorful and extroverted and caring” — when I spoke with the actor recently after winning the Jeff Award for a supporting role in the musical “A Little Night Music” at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire.
Garza, 35, got her first big break when cast in the Paramount’s “Secret to My Success” in 2020, and since then has delighted downtown Aurora audiences in “25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” “The Full Monty,” “School of Rock” and “Groundhog Day.”
Playing three roles in “Mean Girls,” which runs through Oct. 11, has been her “most challenging,” she admits, because the constant changes required to take on multiple personalities amounts to never getting to “settle into the show.”
“But the different walks and the wigs help,” Garza says, noting Mrs. George is the most fun, not just because her “hair is so fabulous,” but she’s “more over the top.”
Cool moms in real life, however, make it all seem effortless.
Garza — she describes herself as the “cool older cousin” in her family — and Jochum both believe we are seeing more of them today because parents are trying to build closer relationships with their kids.
Unlike Mrs. George, who crossed typical parenting boundaries in her desperation to be a friend to her daughter and the other “Plastics,” being cool is really all about “getting more in touch with children and meeting them where they are at,” says Garza.
Jochum agrees. “They are more connected to their kids’ interests, social lives and online culture,” she points out. “While most aren’t as excessive as Regina’s mom, they want their children to feel comfortable talking to them.”
By the way, when I asked the contest winner her first thought upon learning she’d won, her response could only be described by the show’s nonsensical word for great and cool.
“That is so grool,” she said.
dcrosby@tribpub.com