📅 Tuesday, November 12th – Sunday, December 22nd
📍 Francis J. Gaudette Theatre: 303 Front St N, Issaquah
🎟️ Reserve seats here
📅 Saturday, January 4th – Sunday, January 26th
📍 Everett Performing Arts Center: 2710 Wetmore Ave, Everett
🎟️ Reserve seats here
Omigod
Omigod you guys
This play is perfect
And it’s just my size
Legally Blonde stands head-and-shoulders above most of its contemporaries among the seemingly billions of musicals adapted from movies—and they’ve only increased in production in our IP-driven modernity. The Reese Witherspoon-starring original 2001 film, based on Amanda Brown’s novel from the same year, is a triumphant and deceptively progressive bit of sly comedy about having your cake and eating it too, as fashionista Elle Woods heads to Harvard and proves that the person you think is a ditz may actually be the smartest person in the room. So why not musicalize it and spread its word even further?
Six years later, director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell (Hairspray), along with married composer/writer team Laurence O’Keefe (Bat Boy, Heathers) and Nell Benjamin (later of Mean Girls), concocted a bright and peppy musical that amplifies the film’s qualities to an astronomical degree. The show didn’t last too long on Broadway, but its reputation grew thanks to a widely released pro-shot, an MTV reality competition show that cast the lead for when OG star Laura Bell Bundy’s contract was up, and a shrewd licensing plan that made it one of the most popular options for high school drama programs.
Now local institution Village Theatre is about to crush it with another one of their handsome, perfectly cast and designed productions. With Betsy Stewart coming in as Elle, expect a tremendous ensemble of talent backing her up through toe-tappers like “What You Want,” “Positive,” and “Find My Way.” It’s a blast of vivacious energy in the right hands, and Village can bend and snap with the best of them.
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