On March 10, the day “Be More Chill” opened on Broadway, Marie Mohen, 16, took the train in from Garden City, LI, and waited four hours in the cold outside the Lyceum Theatre, hoping to get a ticket.
No luck. But Mohen, who waits and buses tables at her dad’s restaurant twice a week to cover train fare and tickets, has seen the musical three times, after repeated visits — five, so far — to the rush line.
“I plan on continuing to rush almost every weekend when I have the money and the time,” she tells The Post. “It makes me really happy, so why not?”
“Be More Chill” — based on Ned Vizzini’s 2004 novel about a nerdy high-schooler named Jeremy who becomes cool thanks to a pill called a “squip” that tells him what to do — may be the first show to get to Broadway on the wings of social media.
Tweens, teens and millennials have taken the musical to heart ever since it premiered in New Jersey in 2015. Last summer’s short-lived off-Broadway run sold out, and fans have streamed Joe Iconis’ score more than 300 million times. No matter how dismissive the reviews — one critic panned the show as “frenetic” — a fervent and vocal group of Instagram, YouTube and Twitter users have made “Chill” a hot ticket.
Kaley Siemsen and Caitlin Quintanilla, both 20, flew in from Denver early this month to catch a preview. And 16-year-old pals Becky Molin and Olivia Dhein trekked in last week from Mora, Minn., to see it, too.
But “Be More Chill” super fans don’t just fill the theater or blast the soundtrack. They express their devotion through fan art, costumes, memes, covers and even tribute tattoos.
Sean McGuire, a 26-year-old historical researcher, is sewing a replica of the silver-and-black lamé robe worn by the Squip, a Keanu Reeves lookalike played by Jason Tam. Through Instagram, McGuire met Nicole Brennan, a 20-year-old junior at the School of Visual Arts, who posts her comic book-style interpretations of the show’s characters, including Michael, Jeremy’s stoner best friend, who finds himself stuck in the bathroom at a house party in the show’s most popular number.
Brennan used money from a summer job as a grocery store cashier and her Etsy store sales to see “Be More Chill” seven times: three in New Jersey, three off-Broadway performances and once on Broadway. “Jeremy is unsure of himself and who he is, and he feels lost. That’s who I was in high school,” she says. “There was something I could relate to.”
Becca Jones, 19, drove five hours each way from her home in Beverly, Mass., to see the show when it played in New Jersey in 2017. Before she saw the off-Broadway production last summer, the college student spent a week making more than 50 friendship bracelets for the show’s cast and crew.
Teens aren’t the show’s only fans. Jonathan Yuan, 35, an English teacher in Washington Heights, was introduced to it by his students less than a year ago. He’s since seen it three times. Yuan, who attends about four shows a month, was especially struck by the show’s “colorblind” casting.
“In the ’90s, I didn’t see a lot of people who looked like me in movies, TV or music,” Yuan says. In “Be More Chill,” the actor playing Michael is half-Filipino, half-Ecuadorian; Jeremy has a crush on an Asian schoolmate; and the school jock is African-American. “My students are of color,” Yuan says, “and to see people who are like them on the stage is very powerful.”
Fans say the show touches on themes that are universal: loneliness, fear, the need for acceptance. All of which keep Mohen riding the train in from Long Island, where she moved recently from Rumson, NJ.
“Starting high school, I didn’t really have friends,” she says. “I felt like Jeremy. I felt like a loser. But through watching the show and listening to the soundtrack, I’ve grown to be more like Michael. Michael is aware he’s not perfect, but he’s OK. He’s happy with what he likes, which is listening to Bob Marley.
“For me, it’s listening to ‘Be More Chill’ and accepting myself.”