Broadway Goes Blonde: New Musical Begins Palace Previews April 3 | Playbill

Related Articles
News Broadway Goes Blonde: New Musical Begins Palace Previews April 3 Legally Blonde, the new musical based on the Amanda Brown novel and the 2001 film of the same name, begins previews at Broadway's Palace Theater April 3. Laura Bell Bundy stars in the production, which ended its out-of-town tryout at San Francisco's Golden Gate Theatre in February.
//assets.playbill.com/editorial/be6611005233e34e9e8585376c288044-1519350D78CD4B1682EC9D5DBF91522C.jpg
Laura Bell Bundy stars in Legally Blonde. Photo by Paul Kolnik

Jerry Mitchell, who won a Tony Award for choreographing La Cage aux Folles, is making his Broadway directorial debut for the new musical, which officially opens April 29. Mitchell is also the choreographer of Legally Blonde.

Bundy (Hairspray, Wicked) plays sorority girl Elle Woods, who gets dumped by her boyfriend and follows him to Harvard Law School. About the differences between the "Legally Blonde" film and the Broadway musical, Bundy recently told Playbill.com, "The relationship between Emmett [played by Christian Borle] and Elle is more complex [in the musical], and it's a more strongly grounded friendship, and it helps Elle succeed in school. That really wasn't the case in the film, where he was this kind of outside character looking in on Elle and interested in her. In this case, Emmett is doing the same thing, but he [uses] 'tough love' a little bit. He's like, 'Listen girl, you came from a rich family. I came from nothing. If you're going to prove yourself, you've got to do it on merit, because every one of these bluebloods is coming in here with an advantage that you don't have.' . . . [There's also a] difference between Paulette [played by Orfeh] and Elle, just because of the nature of the differences between me and Orfeh and Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Coolidge [who played the parts in the movie]. She still provides that relief of someone I can talk to. And we have a Greek chorus, which is basically my sorority girls coming to life in my head — like, good and evil."

The Blonde cast also includes Christian Borle (Spamalot) as Emmett, Orfeh (Saturday Night Fever) as Paulette, Richard H. Blake (The Wedding Singer) as Warner, Kate Shindle (Cabaret) as Vivienne, Nikki Snelson (Off-Broadway's How to Save the World…) as Brooke and Tony Award winner Michael Rupert (Sweet Charity, The Happy Time, Ragtime) as Professor Callahan.

Also featured in the company are Annaleigh Ashford, April Berry, Paul Canaan, Lindsay Chambers, Beth Curry, Tracy Jai Edwards, Amber Efe, Gaelen Gilliland, Jason Gillman, Becky Gulsvig, Rod Harrelson, Manuel Herrera, Natalie Joy Johnson, Andy Karl, Nick Kenkel, Michelle Kittrell, Leslie Kritzer, Dequina Moore, Rusty Mowery, Kevin Pariseau, Matthew Risch, Jason Patrick Sands, Noah Weisberg and Kate Wetherhead.

Legally Blonde has music and lyrics by both Laurence O'Keefe (Bat Boy: The Musical, Cam Jansen and the Curse of the Emerald Elephant, Sarah, Plain and Tall) and Nell Benjamin (Cam Jansen, Sarah, Plain and Tall, The Mice) and a book by Heather Hach (the film "Freaky Friday"). James Sampliner serves as music director. Orchestrations are by Christopher Jahnke. The production features scenic design by David Rockwell, costume design by Gregg Barnes, lighting design by Kenneth Posner and Paul Miller and sound design by ACME Sound Partners.

The show is produced on Broadway by Hal Luftig, Fox Theatricals and Dori Berinstein, in association with MGM Onstage, Darcie Denkert and Dean Stolber.

For more information visit www.legallyblondethemusical.com.

//assets.playbill.com/editorial/56b79b0bae3bd32396941840728c0ecc-F0ABC6436D684146A83101C5185D2050.jpg
Kate Shindle, Richard H. Blake, Laura Bell Bundy and Michael Rupert in Legally Blonde, directed by Jerry Mitchell. Photo by Paul Kolnik
 
RELATED:
Today’s Most Popular News:
 X

Blocking belongs
on the stage,
not on websites.

Our website is made possible by
displaying online advertisements to our visitors.

Please consider supporting us by
whitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.
Thank you!