Legally_Blonde
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Okay, now to the show.
From TodayTix and Theater People, this is “Broadway Backstory,” the podcast that finds out how shows develop from an idea to a full Broadway production. I’m your host, Patrick Hinds. For today’s episode, we’re getting the backstory of 2007’s “Legally Blonde.” Through conversations with the show’s director, choreographers, writers, composers, producers, and star, we’ll find out how the show developed from a celebrated film to a peppy and empowering long running Broadway hit.
[clip from “Legally Blonde”]
Our story begins in the summer of 2001. Broadway producer Hal Luftig and his partner had just seen “Legally Blonde” at the movie theater. His partner, now his husband, is a psychiatrist. Seeing the film had sparked a conversation about young women in education.
Hal: We got into a conversation about this phenomenon that happens to young women called dumbing themselves down. I was like, what is that; I’ve never heard of that. He explained that girls develop faster than boys. Sorry, guys, if you’re listening; but it’s true. What happens is, somewhere around 12, 13, 14, they go from being A students to B students to C students. The reason is, they discover boys; and it’s not cool, in some places, to be the smartest girl in a class. I was like, wait, you’re kidding me – that really happens; and he said, oh, absolutely. It’s one of the reasons that all-girls’ schools became popular at some point. They thought if they removed the male element from the equation, these girls could excel. Having just seen “Legally Blonde,” the film, got me thinking. Wow – here’s a girl who’s smart enough, if you think about it, to get into Harvard Law. Why does she do it? To chase the jerky guy. I thought, now that’s a story we’ve got to tell.
Patrick: Hal took his idea to his friends and fellow producers, Kristin Caskey and Mike Isaacson, whom he’d worked with a few years earlier on the musical, “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” They loved the idea and got on board immediately. They all agreed right away that there was only one person who could make their vision for the show a reality: Jerry Mitchell. Through the ‘80s and early ‘90s, Jerry had been a Broadway dancer, working with the likes of Jerome Robbins and Michael Bennett. He’d gone on to be one of Broadway’s most celebrated choreographers with Shows like, “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” “The Full Monty,” and “Hairspray.” In fact, it had been Kristin and Mike who had given Jerry his first choreography job.
Mike: Kristin and I gave him his first Broadway choreographing gig in, “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” So we had a longstanding professional warmth, and my memory is we were putting this together right after “Millie” opened, and “Hairspray” was wrapping up. When you saw “Hairspray,” it sort of – at least for me – partially confirmed what we were all seeing; this growth in Jerry and his ability as a major force to tell musical stories. I remember we were, with Hal. How do you think Jerry would do it, blah, blah, blah. Then Hal ran into Jerry on the street.
Hal: I hadn’t really met Jerry. We had circled around each other, but I had not really met him. Again, fortuitously, I’m walking into the 42nd Street subway station. He’s walking out. I literally bumped into him. I said, oh my God, Jerry. I practically attacked him, bowled him over. I said, you’re going to direct this show of mine.
Jerry: I was actually dying to direct a Broadway musical.
Patrick: This is Jerry Mitchell.
Jerry: I think we were on the east side of Times Square. I remember running into him there, I think. It was on that side of the street, across from where we ended up playing – the Palace Theatre. I said, what is it; and he said, I don’t want to tell you; will you come to a meeting. I said, sure.
Hal: He was like, sure, okay, get this crazy person away from me, please.
Patrick: So two weeks later, Jerry goes to the meeting with the producers. He had no idea what show they had in mind for him.
Jerry: Lo and behold, they threw “Legally Blonde” on the table. I went, yes; and I’ll tell you why: because I knew the show like the back of my hand. I knew the movie. I thought the movie was a musical, actually. It was so larger than life, and the heroine was so larger than life. She certainly was a singing, dancing heroine; which you’re looking for when you take a movie and try to adapt it. But most importantly, I really thought I understood the story.
Patrick: But still, I wondered: What had he come up with on the spot that had made the producers know that they were right, that he was the right person for the job?
When you had to articulate, with no prep, in that meeting, what your vision for the show was, what was it?
Jerry: Well, I believe I told them a story about being dumped.
Patrick: Will you tell us?
Jerry: Yes. I was in Broadway shows, and I had a wonderful partner who is still a friend of mine. We were together for seven years, and suddenly I was dumped. I thought that we were going to be together forever. It was my first really partner in New York City, and my heart was really broken; really broken. I could immediately – when I saw the movie, I went, oh, I sympathize with this character; because she became stronger from the event. It sounds cliché, but factually there’s a lot of truth in it. That’s exactly what happened for me. It wasn’t so much about the relationship I was in ending and how I felt. It was about discovering more about myself once that event had happened in my life and what it was I really wanted to spend my time on doing and accomplishing. So it brought my life into more focus, even though at the time it felt like my life was unraveling; which is exactly what happens for the character, Elle.
[clip from “Legally Blonde”]
Patrick: The next step was finding a composing team and a book writer. Here’s producer Mike Isaacson.
Mike: What we did in terms of the score was, we went out to several writing teams, and we asked them to basically submit a demo. We asked them to create songs for the show, and I think the definition was an opening number, a ballad, and pick anything in the film that you felt could be musicalized.
Patrick: One of the composing teams vying for the job was Larry O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin, who – it should be said – are also married. They were hung up on the opening number. Here’s Nell and the director, Jerry Mitchell.
Nell: We really did not want to write the opening number. I hate to write the opening number as an audition for anything, because chances are it’s going to get rewritten anyway. It’s the hardest number to write in the show.
[music clip from “Legally Blonde”]
We were down to the wire, really down to the deadline. Larry’s like, you got anything; and I’m like, I’ve got a phrase. That’s all I’ve got. He’s like, well, let me hear it. I said, oh my God, you guys. Then he went to the piano, and that’s what we got.
[music clip from “Legally Blonde”]
Jerry: As a collective group of producers, they had narrowed it down to four sets and gave me the lyrics sheets and the songs with no names. I listened to all the songs, and I immediately gravitated towards, “Omigod,” oh my God you guys. The “Omigod” song was so brilliant because it pretty much set the tone. It was playful. It had a fabulous entrance for Elle. It was the voice I thought I heard in my head. When I heard it playing on the speakers, I thought, oh, this is really it.
Nell: “Omigod You Guys” felt completely right – no more so than when we actually went to the sorority where Reese Witherspoon did her research. We went to a Sunday dinner there, and they were so excited that we were doing the musical version of the movie. They said, do you have any of the numbers written; and we said, we have an opening number called “Omigod You guys.” They said, oh my God, you guys, that’s the best title. Oh my God – I said it. Did you hear me? Oh my God. You just said it. Oh my God, you guys just said it. We’re all saying it. Oh my God.
[music clip from “Legally Blonde”]
Patrick: Larry and Nell got the job. The producers had a harder time finding their book writer. Here’s producer Kristin Caskey, and then Jerry Mitchell.
Kristin: We knew it had to be somebody who related to Elle Woods, understood her journey, and wanted to be her champion; liked her, liked what she was about, and had that same wit but also intelligent. We had a number of meetings, and it just wasn’t quite gelling. We then had the idea of meeting with a young screenwriter named Heather Hach. We didn’t know much about Heather, but we felt the work she had done on “Freaky Friday” was quite impressive and that there was something within the flavor of her writing that seemed to be a good match for “Legally Blonde.”
Jerry: So they found this girl. They wanted me to go out to California and meet her, so I flew out to California. I was waiting in the lobby of – I don’t know – one of those nice hotels in Century City. In walks this blond woman with her hair in a ponytail and a little purse, and I thought, oh, you are Elle Woods. She sat down, and we hit it off. The night prior to her meeting, they had left a script of hers that she had written for another movie, and it was all about sorority sisters. I read this script, and I was like, oh, she is literally talking valley girl, sorority sister talk. She gets the character. She understands these people.
Of course, she had written the first film, “Freaky Friday,” which I knew about, and they knew about, and I loved that film. So, yes, I met her; and I said, let’s go; let’s give it a try.
Patrick: With the creative team in place, they set to work; and a little over six months later, they presented a reading of the show’s first act. Director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell says it went over like gangbusters, that the producers were thrilled with the work that was being done. The writing of the second act was a different story.
Jerry: Now, from that day, it was, go away and write the second act; and in three months we’ll all get together. So Larry and Nell, I think, were working in New York, and Heather was working in LA. So they were writing from afar, and what happened was the cohesiveness of the first act didn’t seem to present itself in the second act. When we all got the second act – Hal, Kristin, Mike, myself, and Dory, nobody was really completely happy; and I’m putting it nicely.
I was calm, because I knew that the process was the process. I knew there were things that needed to be rearranged, redone; so I convinced Hal to rent a house with three bedrooms, a piano, and a nice kitchen. So we rented a house in the Hamptons. We went to the Hamptons for two weeks and sat in that house.
Patrick: Part of the challenge, they told me, was getting on the same page about how to make Elle an underdog to be rooted for and, ultimately, what they were trying to say with the show they were writing. Here’s composing team Nell Benjamin and Larry O’Keefe, and then Jerry Mitchell.
Nell: At one point someone was saying, oh, don’t you just love Elle Woods. I remember thinking, well, in a way, yes; and in a way, no, in terms of being an underdog. It is very hard to have a pretty rich blond thin underdog.
Larry: After a lot of digging and a lot of negotiation between the various parts of the production team over what the show was recommending, we did arrive at one that we, I think, all agreed on. It is something about pride. Elle Woods begins the show thinking she’s done learning. She begins the show thinking she’s achieved everything she needs to in life; and she thinks that because she is pink and pretty and obliging and soft and shiny, that will get her respect and happiness; and it does not. It gets her dumped. So in order to win in the end – obviously win something she didn’t know she needed – she sets out, for the wrong reasons, on a journey that brings her to the right conclusion; which is, you never stop working on yourself.
Nell: It was the beginning of understanding that what we loved most about Elle is that she just does. She doesn’t stand around singing her feelings and saying, I want, or, I’m so sad, for the most part – not until it’s really dire. She just goes and does; and even if it sounds like the plan is ridiculous, she goes and enacts that plan. She dresses up in the Playboy bunny costume and walks in the room. When that doesn’t work, she still goes forward. She moves, moves, moves. So what you end up with is a surprising amount of respect for a character that you really don’t want to respect: a sorority president who thinks Playboy bunny costumes are cool, who’s got a crush on a most unsuitable man. You have to like someone who just picks herself up and keeps going – or at least, I do.
Jerry: We went in with one second act; and on the day we left, we had a completely different second act. It wasn’t all finished, but it was a new draft. That was a revelation to me as a collaborator, working with writers, about the work and how to accomplish it; and how not to settle, just keep going, keep working.