This April, the WAHS theater department is performing “Legally Blonde: The Musical,” a Broadway hit based on Amanda Brown’s novel of the same name. It features 22-year-old sorority girl Elle Woods, who gets dumped by her boyfriend Warner Huntington because he doesn’t think she’ll suit his lifestyle after he finishes college to become a US Senator. In an attempt to get Warner back, Elle applies for Harvard University to become a lawyer, and to Warner’s surprise she gets in. She begins her journey in becoming an incredible lawyer, and in the process learns how to take her life and herself seriously.
Senior Audrey Scialla, who will be playing Elle Woods in the musical, described the main character as “very bubbly, but she’s very strong. So whenever anything happens in her life that is negative, she always responds with positivity and with this determination to just make it better.” Scialla is also helping with the choreography for the musical. “We’ll listen to all the songs, we’ll watch versions of it, and then we’ll come up with exactly what we want the whole cast to be doing at each point in time,” she said.
William Lewis, who’s a part of the ensemble, is also the propsmaster for Legally Blonde. “Props, in my opinion, is anything that isn’t part of the set or a costume. So we’ll end up making a lot of different things with a lot of different materials,” he said. “We’re the ones in charge of finding all the hair supplies, making sure every bit of school supplies Elle has is very pink and very bedazzled, very over the top and very expensive.”
Some of Western’s own staff will be participating in the musical along with the students. The drama teacher and director of “Legally Blonde” , Caitlin Pitts, said that “Elle’s mom and dad are being played by Ms. Smith, our choir teacher, and Mr. Grimes. And then three of our admin will also be featured in the play: Ms. Tyler, Mr. Granger, and Ms. Sublette.”
The Drama Department held dog auditions for the dogs portrayed in the musical. “We had five dogs come to show up to audition, and we picked two of them because there’s two dogs in the play,” said Pitts. “One dog named Bella we cast as Bruiser, Elle’s dog, and then another beautiful dog named Dusty we cast as Rufus and that’s Paulette’s dog.”
Pitts is extremely excited about the making of this musical. “We all love this musical so much,” Pitts said. “I would say pretty much across the board the energy is just wonderful ‘cause everyone is having a good time.”
