By Zachary Pincus-Roth
30 Apr 2007

O'Keefe said of the audition process, "They asked us to write an opening number, a ballad and also a 'bend and snap' song. For the bend and snap song, we refused because we did not know how to do it yet. And as it turned out, it took us seven tries to get a bend and snap song we liked."

Mo Rocca, now starring in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, showed up to support O'Keefe and Benjamin, both of whom are good friends from Harvard (he was in their wedding). In their senior year, O'Keefe wrote the music and Rocca co-wrote book and lyrics to the Hasty Pudding show Suede Expectations.

"It was a clash of 1970s culture meets Victorian England," Rocca says. "We've been old friends. I was in their apartment when they were like, 'What do you think of this song: Oh my God, Oh my God you guys!' I'm like, 'It's got hit written all over it.'"

Another married couple teaming up for the show is Orfeh (who plays Paulette) and Andy Karl (who plays Paulette's crush, the UPS guy, and other roles).

Karl said that contrary to what one might thinkk, they don't rehearse their scenes at home. "That's the great thing about being married — the chemistry is already there," he said. "We're not trying to show people...how much chemistry there is, we just let it happen."

Orfeh said she was daunted by playing such an memorable role from the film. "As soon as I got it I realized, 'Oops I really better go completely left of Jennifer Coolidge because you can't imitate that kind of greatness," she said. "I had to just kind of break it down and start from scratch."

Book writer Heather Hach said that she and the songwriters had dinner at a sorority house at USC. "All these guys kept coming to deliver flowers to the girls. They were so blasι about the whole thing they're like 'Ehh, more flowers,' and I was like, 'Honey, you need to figure this out. These flowers aren't going to happen on a daily basis in the real world.'"

Hach says she also drew from her own experience as a "a fairly unsuccessful" sorority member. "It wasn't quite for me," she said. "I'm a little more eccentric than that and it just seemed a little ridiculous to me. I did transfer from [University of] Arizona to Colorado and in Colorado they were really relaxed and calm and fine. It's not all psychos or anything, I don't want to paint that picture."

David Rockwell, the set designer, said that for research, he and Mitchell did a lot of shopping. "Jerry and I would go look at stores and get a sense of how to communicate that style," he said. He thinks he's satisfied the shoppers in the audience. "One night during a preview a group of Delta Nus came through and they seemed to like it."

The company of Legally Blonde takes its opening night bows.
photo by Aubrey Reuben

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