The opening night for Shenendehowa’s musical production of Legally Blonde is days away. Based on the 2001 film Legally Blonde, the musical will be performed by members of the Shenendehowa High School Musical Company, which is open to anyone in grades 9-12.
Lila Bruni, a Grade 12 student who plays the Salon Cashier and the TV Reporter in Legally Blonde, says the plot closely resembles the film.
“It’s about Elle Woods, who is a rich girl who lives in California,” she said. “Her boyfriend breaks up with her when she thinks he’s going to propose, and then he goes to Harvard. Elle then decides she’s going to become a law student at Harvard to win him back.”
The lead role of Elle Woods was given to two cast members who will each play the character in two of the four shows. One of the students playing Elle Woods is senior Molly Hurley, who will perform during Thursday night’s opening show and Saturday night’s closing show. She said this will be a bittersweet musical for her, as it will be her final set of performances before she graduates.
“I absolutely love this show, it’s my favorite musical,” Hurley said. “I’m super, super, super excited, but I’m also really sad because it’s my last one.”
While Hurley said she’s excited to take on the lead role, she said that playing Elle Woods comes with some challenges.
“It’s a lot of work, and I’m in every single scene, so there’s not a lot of breaks,” Hurley said.
Other cast members have said this year’s musical will be different in some ways from musicals in years past. Maddy Estep, a Grade 12 student in the Ensemble, said the size of this year’s cast is one notable difference.
“The cast is a lot smaller than it usually is, so that’s a bit different,” she said.
Shayne Boespflug, a senior who is the costumes crew manager, said that Shenendehowa doesn’t often do musical productions as modern as Legally Blonde.
“We usually don’t do modern shows, so it’s different,” she said. “It takes place in the 2000s, whereas last year’s musical Anything Goes took place a long time ago.”
Bruni said this year’s musical has been one of the more enjoyable ones for cast members, as they’ve been working at a faster pace than expected throughout the rehearsal process.
“This show has had a lot less stress than other ones, particularly because we’ve been very ahead of schedule,” she said.
This week is known as tech week, the three-day stretch leading up to the show consisting of nearly six-hour rehearsals after school every day until opening night.
“For tech week, we’re going to be at school every day until 9pm,” Estep said. “We run the entire show once through every single day, and we have to get into the full hair, makeup, and costumes. We also have to bring in our own costumes this year. The costumes are great.”
Despite the long hours, Estep described the week as one of the best parts of being in the musical.
Coming off of a year in which Shen’s production of Anything Goes earned an award at the Capital Region’s High School Musical Theatre Awards for best choreography execution, Estep said she hopes to “repeat the success” with Legally Blonde and win another award.
With the musical just days away, Bruni said she thinks everyone at Shen should come see Legally Blonde.
“People should come see Legally Blonde because it’s fun, upbeat, and it’s really hilarious,” she said. “We kept all the jokes from the original show, so it’s very accurate to the movie for fans.”
As for buying tickets, there are several different ways to reserve seats at the show.
“Students can go to GoFan, or we have tables set up next to the main cafeteria that are selling tickets,” Hurley said. “You can also buy tickets at the door.”
Legally Blonde will be performed in the Shenendehowa High School East auditorium at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 6 and Friday, March 7, with two more performances on Saturday, March 8 at 2 and 7 p.m.
