Photo courtesy of Izzy Mbatai

While still in season for the No. 8 football team, junior cornerback Izzy Mbatai will perform on a different stage this week in the Performing Arts Department’s (PAD) production of “Mean Girls.” On Francis Olympic Field, he wears the No. 2 jersey. At Edison Theatre, Mbatai is the male lead, playing Aaron Samuels.

Athletics and performing arts may seem like contrasting interests, but to Mbatai, they are two versions of the same thing: a performance that requires weeks of preparation leading up to a moment under bright lights in front of a crowd. 

Making time for football and musical theater as a business and computer science major may seem impossible, but Mbatai makes it work. 

His weeks start with early morning practices from 6-8 a.m. on Mondays and 6-10 a.m. on Tuesdays. He misses rehearsal on Tuesday nights for a remote course through Cornell University. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, Mbatai has football practice from 3-6:15 p.m. and then goes straight to “Mean Girls” rehearsal from 7-10 p.m. When the occasional Saturday rehearsal conflicts with a home game, Mbatai trades vocal warmups in the theater for dynamic warmups on the field. 

Mbatai finds juggling a full schedule is “second nature.” He credits a consistent sleep schedule for helping him balance football, “Mean Girls,” and job interviews. His grades have improved, too, since he began prioritizing his sleep. He averages 7 1/2 hours of sleep per night and is aiming for a 4.0 GPA this semester. 

Mbatai has been singing and acting since middle school as part of the choir and musical theater programs. His mother, a doctor, worried about head injuries and didn’t let her son play football until high school. After joining his high school’s team in ninth grade, football took over his life. Mbatai’s involvement in performing arts was put on pause until he joined his high school’s production of “Mean Girls” as part of the ensemble after the football season ended.

“My senior year [of high school], I did ‘Mean Girls’ for the first time, and that was really fun to do and get back into the groove and learn a really cool show,” Mbatai said.

When Mbatai got to WashU, football once again took center stage. That was until last January, when he acted in Black Anthology’s “It’s Easy Going” during football’s offseason. Mbatai’s role in the show didn’t involve singing or dancing, but it got him back on stage. So when Mbatai saw an advertisement for PAD’s production of “Mean Girls,” he was intrigued. 

“As I was here for preseason, I was walking through Mallinckrodt [Center] and saw they had ‘Mean Girls’ on a little ‘Shows of the Year’ [sign],” Mbatai said. “And [I] asked my friends back home, ‘Should I do it again?’ And they’re all like, … ‘Do it.’”

This time, Mbatai set his sights high. 

“I think going for Aaron is a pretty cool feat,” Mbatai said. “I already did ensemble. I know how that works. … New challenge would be fun.”

Like Mbatai, the character of Aaron Samuels is a football player. In the musical, Samuels is the teenage heartthrob — the star athlete the female characters fawn over. But Mbatai sees him as more than that. 

“He’s a little corny,” Mbatai said about his character. “He’s a high school guy trying to make sense of himself. … It’s really fun to see that contrast and have to act that out on stage.”

Mbatai appreciates multidimensionality in other aspects of his life, including football. He credits his team’s coaching staff for encouraging players, as Mbatai put it, to be “more than just an athlete,” and to take advantage of what the University offers, though Mbatai says theater likely never crossed his coaches’ minds. 

When Mbatai auditioned for the musical, he assumed he would be among the 60 players on the football team’s 118-person roster who make the travel squad. So when he later learned he wouldn’t be traveling to away games, he suddenly had extra time on his hands. 

“At first you’re kind of weird about it [not making the travel squad], and obviously I want to be there playing,” Mbatai said. “And I think ‘Mean Girls’ was also one of those things where if I’m not gonna be at [away] games, I might as well be doing something.”

Mbatai favors the challenges both football and theater offer. As a cornerback, he spends practices defending some of the Bears’ best wide receivers, including senior Makael Carter, who leads the team in receiving yards and touchdowns. With the role of Aaron, the challenge is vocal: Mbatai has to hit notes he’s never hit before. The approach that helps him overcome that challenge onstage also helps him on the field. 

“I’ve seen that on ‘Mean Girls,’ you have to release an expectation of yourself and just flow,” he said. “I’m most successful on the field when I’m not in my head, when I’m kind of flowing.”

Mbatai’s teammates have been supportive of his role in the musical. Some were surprised, and others expressed their love for musicals or “Mean Girls” to Mbatai and are eager to see him in it. When his castmates find out that he’s on the football team, they’re usually excited and ask how he manages both. 

“You think in your head that there’s some beef, or you see on television or in movies there’s kind of a contrast between the two,” Mbatai said. “I think here at WashU, it’s super accepting on both sides, and people rock with it.”

Watch Mbatai take the Edison Theatre stage in one of the five performances of “Mean Girls” from Thursday, Oct. 22, through Sunday, Oct. 25. A week later, he’ll be on Francis Olympic Field for the football team’s matchup against Denison University on Oct. 31.