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.

Patrick: With the new draft in place, the next step was to cast their Elle Woods. We all know the role would ultimately go to Laura Bell Bundy, but that wasn’t a foregone conclusion at the beginning. There was another actress in particular that the creative team was strongly considering. Here’s Jerry Mitchell.

Jerry: It was a very hard decision, and it wasn’t just Laura Bell. Kerry Butler, who is dear friend and an incredible talent and gifted actress, was also in the running. They both were – literally, it’s “Sophie’s Choice.” How do you choose? We had several auditions, several auditions. Laura Bell, for a lot of reasons, just seemed right to me. Kerry had done a lot of the demos for Larry and Nell, and they really knew her and, of course, loved her voice. Who doesn’t love her voice? So it was that sort of thing: Here are two very different actresses, but both capable of really delivering a knockout job with this role.

Patrick: Laura Bell, who – like Kerry Butler – had worked with Jerry on “Hairspray,” was at the time standing by for Kristin Chenoweth in “Wicked.” She was going on a lot in the role because of Kristin’s various concert commitments.

Laura: They basically brought me into “Wicked” because they knew that Kristin was going to be out for these long amounts of time. So I was able to send notes to friends and say, hey, guys, I’m going to be Galinda in “Wicked,” do you want to come see the show; and Jerry, surprisingly – it surprised me – was, like, I want to come. I was like, great, I’ll get you tickets.

Jerry: I went to see Laura go on in “Wicked;” and when they got to that last song they sing …

Patrick: Oh, “For Good.”

Jerry: “For Good,” yes. Laura Bell literally broke my heart and made me cry.

Laura: Then a month or so after that, an article came out. Whether – I think it was one of the media outlets said, hey, “Legally Blonde” is going to come to Broadway; Hal Luftig is producing; Jerry Mitchell is directing; and did the announcement. So I just sent him a note. I was like, hey, Jerry, I heard about “Legally Blonde;” I am so happy for you; you totally deserve this; you’re going to kill this; and by the way, I know someone who would be really great for Elle Woods, wink, wink. He responded back immediately and said, what do you think that I came to see you in “Wicked;” I wanted to see if you could carry a show. Then he said, when we are ready, I will bring you in front of the creative team.

Jerry: So we got down to the finals, and everybody was like, oh, Laura Bell; oh, Kerry; oh, Laura Bell; oh, Kerry. I said, look: I’m with you. One day I’m saying Kerry; one day I’m saying Laura Bell. Let’s do this. Let’s bring them both back together and have them both do the exact same thing. So that was it. Who will serve the material the very best, the material that’s in front of us?

Patrick: It was July, 2005 when Laura Bell got the call from her agent to go in for that final audition. At the time she was in the middle of a very intense workshop of the original production of “Rock of Ages” at the Eugene O’Neill workshop in Connecticut.

Laura: This was a Friday. The audition was on Monday. I had presentations all weekend. I got a FedEx package from Justin [unintelligible 00:20:27] that I’ll always remember. He went out of his way to FedEx me this package with a CD of three songs and 12 pages of lines. So in between these performances I was doing at the O’Neill, I was cramming this material into my brain. I remember going on walks and having tape recorded all the lines. I was just talking to myself while I was walking around this little neighborhood. Then I came into the city. I didn’t have a place there, so I stated with friends; and they had a baby. I had no place to go for the music, so I went over to the West Side Highway, under some building where nobody was – dangerous as hell – and I just sang my face off, so much better, underneath this overpass, basically.

Then the next day I remember walking into this audition, and there was every girl who had ever played Amber Von Tussle or Galinda, except for Kristin Chenoweth. Then I went in and did my audition, and I felt very, very emotionally connected to the material. I felt very connected to the “Legally

Blonde” ballad. For some reason it just made me very emotional. So I got through all the material. Jerry said I did a good job, and then I left. I got a call about an hour after I left. They said, can you come back in an hour, because Larry O’Keefe didn’t get to see you sing the songs. They were going to get someone else to play.

Jerry wanted him to see the way that I emoted, I guess; and so I did. I came back, and then I left. As I was driving to JFK, I got a phone call from Jerry. Jerry was like, we would like for you to be our Elle for this reading. I was so excited. I remember just getting on the plane, being so happy. Then I came back, and I did the first reading in July of 2005.

[music clip from “Legally Blonde”]

Patrick: Once Laura Bell was cast, “Legally Blonde” would have a handful of readings and two official workshops. One of Jerry Mitchell’s trademarks as a director, one he leaned heavily on during the workshop phase, is a collaborative working style in which everyone, including the actors, is encouraged to contribute their ideas.

Jerry: I usually try to get them engaged, to realize that the process isn’t them coming in and doing what’s on the page. The process is them coming in and discovering what’s on the page with me and, together, building the show. This is the starting point. Where we end – who know where we’ll end?

Patrick: For Laura Bell, watching the way her friend and costar, Christian Borle, worked in those early rehearsals helped her to see how valuable her contributions could be to the show.

Laura: Christian Borle is truly a creative collaborator when he’s in a rehearsal process. He’ll come up with suggestions and things that – I’m like, really, you have the balls to suggest this; but I learned a lot from him. I learned a lot from watching him.

Patrick: She also got a lot of encouragement from Jerry Mitchell.

Laura: I remember us, very early in the process. He took me to dinner, and he said, I need you, and I need you to understand everything you’re saying, doing; every lyric, every moment. I need you to understand it, and I need you to feel it. I need everything, because – that’s just what he expected of me. He was like, if something doesn’t make sense to you, I want you to tell me. I was like, okay. I came in the next day, and I was like, I don’t think Elle Woods would do this. I don’t think Elle Woods would to that. I don’t think Elle Woods would do this. I don’t think – blah, blah, blah. I cut all the shoes I had, because they looked like hospital shoes, because they were theater shoes. I said, you all need to just go out to Prada and Luis Viton. I’ll make it work. Put a strap on it. Cut to, my

shoe flies through the audience in San Francisco, and then in New York again, because I was wearing basic high heels from Bergdorf Goodman. But …

Patrick: What do you do when that happens?

Laura: You just throw the other shoe off and keep going. The show must go on.

Patrick: The July, 2005 workshop was a huge hit, and the producers immediately booked a second workshop for the spring of 2006. That would be followed by an official out of town run in San Francisco in early 2007. For Jerry, being that this was his first time directing and choreographing, and knowing that the San Francisco run was the precursor to Broadway, the spring workshop was a particularly valuable opportunity for him.

Jerry: I was a chance for me to get ahead of myself, to get a lot of work done that I knew would be in the show; so when we got into rehearsal for the out of town, I wasn’t creating 16 numbers in four weeks. So it was really time to look at the numbers, get them on their feet, make sure we had the right numbers.

Patrick: And for Laura Bell, that workshop would either be the end of her journey with the show or the beginning of her journey to Broadway with it.

Laura: When you do workshops and readings, you don’t have the part. There’s no guarantee. You’re just – every day is an audition. Then, at the end of that, there was some presentation for “Legally Blonde.” When we were at the presentation, Hal and Kristin, Dory, and Mike, the producers, took me aside and said, we’re going into production next year, and we’re officially offering you the role. I was like, ah! It was after I had sung, or it was before I sang, or whatever. Then of course I go to sing so much better. It’s like …

[music clip from “Legally Blonde”] Patrick: The production landed in San Francisco to begin their pre-Broadway run in

January of 2007. The show had a reported budget of $15 million; and even though, by all accounts, the show was in really good shape when they got to California, it occurred to me while I was researching this just how much money that was to be spending on a show being held by a first-time director. So I asked producer Hal Luftig: Was he nervous?

Hal: So, in San Francisco, it was a little unnerving, to say the least. But because it was the first time we’d ever done this, that we had ever worked with him, I was, honestly, a little more nervous than he was.

Patrick: There was a lot of work to be done in San Francisco. Jerry told me that he learned, while working on “Hairspray,” one of the most popular shows of its time, that it didn’t matter how much the audience loved a show in previews.

There was always more work to be done the next day. One of the first things they tackled was a book issue. I want to say that, unprompted, every single person I interviewed told me this exact same story; I think because it speaks to the collaborative environment Jerry fostered throughout the entire rehearsal process for the show. They were all really proud of that. Here’s Jerry Mitchell, book writer Heather Hach, and Laura Bell Bundy.

Jerry: There was a problem with the scene after the jump rope number, top of Act 2, “Whipped Into Shape.” There was a little scene where we needed to get from there to her taking him shopping. It was not working. It was terrible. Nothing was happening. I said, you know what, let’s take Laura Bell and Christian back to my hotel room after show tonight, and let’s improv the scene in my hotel room. So we did.

Laura: Christian and I just started improvising, and Heather was just writing it down. Then she goes, okay, so this is what I’ve got: blah, blah, blah. I was like, okay, well, what if we change that, da, da, da.

Heather: It was just kind of a give and take. They would give me a little. I would give them some. It’s an improvisation. With two people that talented and that smart, I don’t care where the line comes from. I’ll take it from the usher if it works, you know what I mean? Just make it work. They’re so clever. It really helped.

Jerry: We sat in my room, and we talked through the scene. Where are you? How do you get from here to here? I said, okay, let’s just give it a try. Say whatever you want. Let’s improv it. They started arguing and calling her a butthead. We actually ended up writing the scene that night in my room. Heather wrote the scene using the actors. We had been far enough along that they were inside the characters now, living inside the characters.

Laura: So they basically took, essentially, the improv that Chris and I did, that was loosely based on the material that we got; and then crafted that improv into what that scene would be.

Patrick: There were also a lot of changes being made for Laura Bell. Here are composers Nell Benjamin and Larry O’Keefe.

Nell: We were futzing with one song over and over again, as occasionally happens in the out of town; and it had not yet dawned on us that perhaps it was going to be a different song. We were really trying to save this song. So we would rehearse new versions of it, new choreography, new lyrics, every single day during the preview period. So imagine: Laura Bell’s already had to learn this whole show; and then she’ll do the show at night, and then the next day she shows up. We go up to the balcony of the San Francisco theater, and she

learns all new choreography – no. I take it back; it’s worse. She learns some new choreography and some new lyrics for an existing song.

So imagine: You have a kind of muscle memory with songs. In your laziness, you can just sing a song you know. Imagine if I just replaced the second line and the fourth line and then the sixth and the eighth lines, and you had to do that again that night. She would do that. I was so amazed by that, and it wasn’t just her. The whole ensemble was learning new choreography and things like that. It was so very impressive and a terribly cruel thing to do to her, now that I am saying it into a microphone. My goodness. Why did we do that to Laura? I’m sorry, Laura Bell.

Larry: By the time we were done writing the show, we were like, oh, no. We have written a show with more stage time for your lead than Mama Rose, and maybe a harder sing. Oops. Sorry. She just took it. In future productions we took songs down a half step. She never asked for the song down a half step. She should have asked for the song down a half step, because no one should be subjected to that. Sorry. For her to go and do that every night was extraordinary.

Patrick: As Laura Bell described it, she was thriving during previews.

Laura: I’m also the type of performer that is 80 percent there without an audience. I don’t really know how it’s going to go down until that audience is there, because that’s why performance is. It is an exchange of love between you and that audience. It helps you to craft your performance. That’s why previews are so absolutely necessary. Actually, taking things out of town is, too, because you don’t really get that rhythm until they’re there. There were so many things we were surprised about that got laughs that we didn’t think would get laughs, or that didn’t get laughs that we thought would get laughs.

I also – my energy level goes way higher when the audience is there, and I find my moments and my comedy bits. It’s so much more crystal clear for me. So once we got to San Francisco, and we got that audience, I was really living in Elle.

Patrick: When I asked Jerry Mitchell how he thought Laura Bell was handling the pressure and the changes and the sheer volume of work she was doing, this is what he had to say.

Jerry: I never once, in the whole process of “Legally Blonde,” ever lost faith in Laura Bell. I thought she was brilliant in it. I thought she was sensational in it.

Patrick: Despite the great work that was being done with the changes that were being put in, the producers were stressed, Hal in particular; because each change, no matter how small, cost money. Here’s Jerry Mitchell and then Hal.

Jerry: When we did our first preview, I think Mike Isaacson told me that he had to keep Hal away from me, because Hal was ready to jump off the roof and kill me and kill everybody.

Hal: You know what somebody told me – I was so, probably, uptight at that [unintelligible 00:33:15]. What is it like? The pressure was so great that somebody said to me – I think it came from “Ferris Buehler” – if I had a piece of coal up my butt, it would have been a diamond. That’s how – the pressure was – it is insurmountable. When you’re going through it, it’s so incredibly painful that you think, I’m never doing this again. I’m going to kill someone who comes up to me. But the next project, I swear – and then in hindsight, it’s like, well, that wasn’t so bad.

Especially on a commercial run, you have millions of dollars pending on this. You hope that you’re not throwing out – as you throw out a song – half the set or half the costumes, or re-orchestrating; all those kinds of things. So you just hope that doesn’t happen. While you’re hoping and trying to steer the car that way, you don’t have to make changes. It’s nerve-wracking, because you’re rehearsing on show or part of a show during the day. You’re doing the old show at night, and you’re trying to figure out what works.

Then we have this rule. Jerry has taught me that, when you put a change into a show, you have to give it three performances, at least, to see if it works or not. You can’t judge it from the first night, because the poor actors are up there trying to remember, wait, am I doing last night’s show, or tonight’s show? Which show am I doing? So you have to give it three performances to let it settle. That sounds easy, but it’s hard to do, because you’re sitting there going, it’s not working; it’s not working; it’s not working. Then suddenly it clicks.

Patrick: The thing that saved everyone’s sanity in moments of chaos and crisis – and this is, again, something that every single person that I interviewed said to me – was, Jerry Mitchell’s sense of calm and his overall positivity. Here are producers Mike Isaacson and Hal Luftig.

Mike: I like to say, onstage and off, he’s a joy machine. So when you’re working with him, and you’re around that, that energy just flows from him to everybody. He’s really good at saying to producers, here, I need my safe space, or this – stay away for a while; and then I want you to come and look. He knows how to work with producers in an incredibly productive partnership way and define his space. I remember there was a moment we were in final tech, and the producers saw a moment onstage for the first time. It just was bad. I don’t want to go into details, but it was – you never know until you see it. We were sitting there with our jaws dropped.

Before we could even turn to each other, Jerry comes running up the aisle, looks at the three of us, and points to the back of the theater. We go running out, and he says, don’t worry; I see it; I know it; I’ll fix it; give me time; I’ve got it. You just go, okay, and you go back in the theater. That’s the kind of talent he is.

Hal: Jerry is one of the smartest but happiest, exuberant, positive, outlooking people we know. A building could be falling around Jerry, and he’ll find something positive in it. Wow – I could do a tap dance on a fallen beam or something. When everything was topsy turvy, Jerry was calm and centered. He would listen to notes and everyone, but he knew his path.

Mike: Everybody who’s been in a Jerry Mitchell show – the crew, the cast who have been in a Jerry Mitchell show – there’s warmth. There’s humanity. There’s family. There’s fun. There’s this sense we’re all doing a show together, and he’s just great at that.

Patrick: The San Francisco production of “Legally Blonde” opened at the Golden Gate Theatre on May 8, 2007 to positive reviews. Robert Hurwitt of the San Francisco Chronicle called the show a buoyant blend of comic invention, captivating performances, bright design, and knock ‘em dead dance numbers. He praised Laura Bell Bundy as ever engaging, and said, she has a strong, attractive voice and is a radiantly, beguilingly smart Elle. Of Jerry Mitchell’s direction and choreography, he said, he’s given “Blonde” a remarkably fluid cinematographic incarnation that succeeds in making the musical look not only larger than life but bigger than film.

[music clip from “Legally Blonde”]

Patrick: Before heading out of town for the San Francisco run, Hal lined up the Palace Theatre to be the show’s Broadway home. I’m always curious about how a show ends up in the theater they’re in on Broadway, so I asked him about it.

Why the Palace?

Hal: You know, the Neidlanders have been a great partner to me. They always have. I miss Jimmy Senior terribly. It’s hard for their, what, 30 theaters now. Every season there are 80 shows, and theater owners have to trust [unintelligible 00:38:21]. It’s easy to just go with the same producers that you’ve worked with before. But Jimmy Senior, bless his heart, became a big champion and mentor of mine. When it came time to do “Legally Blonde,” I went to him first; and I said, we’re doing this show. He came to a reading, and his wife Charlene love it. She just fell in love with it.

So we started looking at which theaters it could go in. Again, a lot of it’s timing and alchemy and what was available and when. The Palace was –

actually, the Palace had a show that had closed very suddenly, and we weren’t ready. It was almost 10 months before we were going to be ready with San Francisco to come in. He held that theater. Can you imagine? That theater – I think it got a little interim booking. But for, I’m going to say, eight of the 10 months, it was dark. He just held that theater. That’s the kind of guy he was. So that’s why the Palace.

Of course the director and the choreographer – in this case it was the same – have to approve the theater, and Jerry just thought, this theater is going to work. It has the color palette of Elle, and it just felt like Elle would live here. So it was a great fit.

Patrick: It was a very, unusually fast turnaround from San Francisco to Broadway. They closed at the end of February, and their first preview at the Palace was to be April 12th; which meant that, including their preview performances, they would have only about six weeks to make and implement any final changes. For Hal, the previews in New York were a breeze compared to the craziness that had been the previews in San Francisco.

Hal: We got really good reviews in San Francisco, so we knew that we were really on the right track. A couple reviews nitpicked a couple of things, which we looked at; and we said, okay, it makes sense; we can, or can’t, fix that. So the New York previews, for me anyway, where just – phew.

Patrick: Most of all, I wondered how it was for Laura Bell, to know that she was coming back to Broadway, originating her first leading role, and carrying this $15 million new musical.

Laura: It was a lot of responsibility. I think I was ready for it, and I think I was naïve enough to not really know what all that meant. I don’t think I was – I was a little wide eyed and along for the ride. I also say, I just wanted to deliver for Jerry, and I wanted to deliver for the creative team.

Patrick: When I asked Jerry Mitchell if he thought the show was ready on opening night, his answer was simple.

Jerry: Yes. Yes, I did. I did think it was ready. We worked. We worked, worked, worked.

Patrick: “Legally Blonde” officially opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre on April 30th, 2007; but before we get to the reviews and the stuff that followed, I want to share a story that producer Hal Luftig shared with me about his fondest memory from opening night.

Hal: On opening night, Jerry’s mom, by the time we opened, had advanced emphysema. They live in this little town called Paw Paw, Michigan. I still

think he makes that up. But it really does exist. His parents flew in for the opening. This was going to be his first opening night, which was a big deal for them. In fact, because of her advanced emphysema – sorry, I’m going to try to tell this without getting emotional – we had to make special provisions for her in the theater. She had to sit with an oxygen mask. There are fire hazards there and all that kind of stuff. So we had to make provisions with the fire department, and we had to remove seats in the back for exit, things like that.

I remember her being brought into the theater – sorry – and I leaned down to say congratulations. With not a lot of breath, she whispered in my ear, promise you’ll only do Jerry Mitchell shows. Sorry. I told her I would, and that’s my memory of opening night. Just having her there, and seeing Jerry so proud that she was there – she actually passed away not too long after that. Whenever I do think of opening night – because I do think of it – it was a beautiful, beautiful moment. I’m glad she got to see it.

Patrick: The reviews were mixed. Outlets like Variety loved it, but the all-important – some would say singularly important – New York Times review, written by Ben Brantley, was mostly negative.

[music clip from “Legally Blonde”]

But just like Elle Woods would do, this show picked itself up, dusted its gorgeous self off, and ran for over a year and a half with 595 performances. You go, girl.

[music clip from “Legally Blonde”]

“Legally Blonde” was nominated for seven Tony Awards, including best costume design, best featured actress, best featured actor for Christian Borle, best book of a musical for Heather Hach, best original score for Larry O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin, best choreography for Jerry Mitchell, and best actress in a musical for Laura Bell Bundy.

[music clip from “Legally Blonde”] Laura: I was not expecting it. It was a year with really phenomenal strong female

performances. I wasn’t even going to wake up for – because I was like, I need to get my sleep so I can do my show. Then I happened to – internal clock woke me up. I was like, oh, what the hell – what time is it? I’ll turn it on. And, best actress for a musical – I swear, the first name they said was mine.

Patrick: It’s alphabetical.

Laura: Laura Bell Bundy. I was like, ah! Oh my God! Ah!

Patrick: “Legally Blonde” would go on to have an incredibly successful national tour, and in 2010, “Legally Blonde” opened to rave reviews in London’s West End. Jerry Mitchell, once again, handpicked his leading lady for that production, a then unknown actress named Sheridan Smith. That production won three Oliviers, including best actress for Sheridan Smith and best new musical. It ran for two and a half years.

I want to end with a story Laura Bell Bundy told me. Six months after she left the Broadway production, Jerry Mitchell called her in a panic. The actress playing Elle on the national tour and her cover were both out of the show with injuries. They were desperate. They needed Laura Bell to agree to do the show for six weeks, and they needed her to get on a plane and get to Washington DC immediately. She agreed and went to do it because she thought it would be fun.

What she didn’t expect was for the experience to be a bookend and an opportunity to really see all the things that “Legally Blonde” had given her.

Laura: I had such a good time. I had no pressure. I explored Elle in a way I had never explored her, and I realized, when I did that role, I was revisiting myself. Elle was who I was at 25. Elle’s emotional journey was similar to my personal emotional journey. When I went back and put her pink dress back on, and those heels, I was like, wow; this it so nostalgic for me, because every single moment of this show has been crafted to fit me emotionally. I was revisiting an old friend. It was a very, very interesting thing.

I believe that show changed me on many levels, and I think Elle had a really good impact on me in terms of me being a positive human being and me believing in myself as a woman, and me believing in myself in general and seeing the best in others. I learned a lot about my own vulnerability at that time in my life, but also as an actress. It was an interesting couple of years. It was a dramatic couple of years in a way, but also really exciting. I felt like I went from being a girl to being a woman when I did that show. I learned a lot.

[music clip from “Legally Blonde”]

Patrick: Stay tuned after the credits for scenes from our next episode.

[music clip from “Legally Blonde”]

You guys, “Legally Blonde’s” Annaleigh Ashford is making her Broadway return alongside Jake Gyllenhaal in the highly anticipated “Sunday in the Park with George” in February. If you want to see more of Jerry Mitchell’s work, don’t miss “Kinky Boots” on Broadway. For our London listeners, you can enter the exclusive TodayTix front row lottery to see “Kinky Boots” in the West End.

Make sure to check out TodayTix for great deals on these shows and more; and don’t forget, “Broadway Backstory” listeners can use the code “backstory” for $15 off your first purchase on TodayTix. So download the TodayTix app for free on IOS and Android, or visit todaytix.com to see what’s playing this week and treat yourself to a show. “Broadway Backstory” is a partnership between TodayTix and Theater Podcast Productions. Episodes are produced, mixed, and edited by my, Patrick Hinds. Special thanks for the invaluable production help from Steve Tipton, Mike Jenson, Rickie Condos, Matt Tamanini, Chloe O’Connor, Chloe [Lindt], and Grace Fromme.

[music clip from “Next to Normal”]

Male Voice: Brian and I met in college. My girlfriend at the time, who is now my wife, introduced us and thought that we would be a good team. Brian is the one who came up with the idea for what we called “Feeling Electric” at the time. He pitched me the idea and started the [unintelligible 00:49:04] musical theater workshop back in 1998. We just kept feeling like we had to write it, even though we thought it was just going to be an exercise for that assignment.

Female Voice: Well, we had worked with David Stone on “Spelling Bee,” and we were looking for our next project; and David said, why don’t you go see this play at Nymph called, “Feeling Electric.” He said, I think there’s something really special there. So he said, go see it. He had already seen it. I went to see it, and I agreed with him; and that’s really the beginning of it.

Male Voice: I was having a very hard time reconciling her illnesses, and when Brian found a way to link those illnesses and to talk about bipolar disorder and visual hallucination as related and also potentially catalyzed by some traumatic event, I really felt we had the really credible foundation for this musical.

Male Voice: In the back of my mind, I always dreamed that the part would find its way to her. You’re very nervous to go up to someone of that stature and say, so, I’m a young writer, and I have this show that I was wondering – you might want to hear. I’m sure every young writer was doing that.

Female Voice: David called me, and he said, are you sitting down. I was in a meeting. I said, yes. He said, we just won the Pulitzer Prize. I said, what!

Patrick: Next time, on the season finale of “Broadway Backstory.”