Selecting a season of plays and musicals is one of the most difficult aspects of any theatre director’s job. Settling on a musical for each spring is especially arduous for me. The decision to present Legally Blonde starting February 29 is not one we entered into easily.
There is a wide range of criteria to consider in selecting the musical . . . probably more than we can reasonably discuss here. We choose our musical based on its potential for educational opportunities, artistic and technical challenges, and an ability to attract an audience. We ultimately must like a show enough to spend three or four months working on it.
Legally Blonde is a musical that has been on our radar for a few years. We like it because it is new and hip. We also like Legally Blonde because it is based on a recent, popular movie and features a fun score and outstanding opportunities for dance. It is a well-known and popular show with our students because the national tour had recently left the road and the New York production had been taped live for rebroadcast on MTV. Legally Blonde includes many opportunities to feature our very talented students both on and off stage.
We initially requested the rights to Legally Blonde for spring of 2011 – before Hairspray had become available to us. Those rights were denied because the show had not yet been released for amateur performance. However, Legally Blonde was now officially on our screen and we resolved to present the show at the earliest possible moment.
Over the past summer, we learned that the amateur rights to Legally Blonde would be available starting in the fall. Our heart was set on Legally Blonde – The Musical for spring of 2012 and all we had to do was get the stars to align in time.
We waited to announce a new season for an official opportunity to secure the rights to Legally Blonde. Several calls to the licensing agency, Musical Theatre International (MTI), were promising but yet no official release. I was told that the delay was because the authors were making changes to the script based on adjustments that had been made as part of the tour and successful European productions. There was no telling how long this would take and we would just have to be patient. We were told that the amateur rights to Legally Blonde would be available starting in January.
We decided that we could not wait that long to announce the musical for the 2011-2012 theatre season. We need to sell a subscription series and that is very difficult to do without having a well known musical to help tent-pole the season. We met several times and had many discussions about the kind of show we wanted to do with the students we had this year and finally decided that How to Succeed in Business was a good fit for us. How to Succeed is available to amateurs and is easily cast with our students. It is a funny show with legit dance opportunities and a very successful Broadway revival still on the boards. It would work for us just fine . . . even though we still longed for Legally Blonde.
The school year started and we got busy. We printed brochures and posters featuring How to Succeed as our musical. Press releases went out. The website was configured. Word-of-mouth was doing its thing as some people were already looking forward to our musical. Rehearsals were underway for the first play of the new season and we were making plans for the rest. We sold a few subscriptions and people seemed to be interested in our season.
Then the stars aligned.
We got the word from MTI that the amateur rights to Legally Blonde were now available. The changes to the script had been made, the books were printed, and it was ours for the taking. We talked about it briefly and decided to make the change. It was better to present a show we loved than the one we liked. New press releases went out. Announcements were made in school. Facebook statuses were posted. Our website was updated. Audition notices were posted. Posters were printed. We even scored a feature article in the local paper featuring our entire season – including the change of musical.
I have no doubt that our production of Legally Blonde will be a big success. I already know that the onstage performances are excellent. The technical elements are coming along. We have already sold a fair amount of tickets and people are talking excitedly about the show. We will attract an audience – maybe more than the record-setting crowd we attracted to Hairspray.
It is inconvenient to change the musical once one has been announced. A few people might be confused because there is still a season brochure out there. But in this case, it is worth it because I know the audience will love our Legally Blonde just as much as we do.
