In her breakthrough comedy “School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play,” now on Broadway, the Ghanaian-American playwright Jocelyn Bioh evokes the special power and popularity once held by beauty pageants to explore larger themes about beauty, belonging and power.

“I specifically set it in 1986 because at that time, the dream of becoming any sort of Miss Anything — Miss Universe, Miss World, Miss America — one actually could become a superstar,” Bioh, 43, told me recently. “Now beauty pageants and things like that maybe don’t hold the same kind of cultural significance.”

But, she continued, “Vanessa Williams is famous because of a beauty pageant. If you’re a ‘Real Housewives of Atlanta’ fan, you know Kenya Moore won Miss USA, and Halle Berry was Miss Ohio. So there were really opportunities for you to become a superstar.”