For weeks leading up to its opening night, this year’s all-school musical, “Legally Blonde,” took the school by storm—a storm of pink, that is. Preparation began at the conclusion of last year’s musical, and it took countless hours for the 170 actors, technicians and staff members to bring the world of Elle Woods to life.
On February 1st, the musical opened to the public with a sold-out show, and resulted in a standing-ovation. The cast performed three more times, each ending with another standing-ovation and many tears, as the seniors had performed in their last musical at FMHS.
Senior Brooklyn Smith, who played the lead Elle Woods, regarded the whole experience as one of her biggest challenges, but also one of the most rewarding.
“The toughest part was definitely the singing. It’s one the hardest shows I’ve ever done, pushing me vocally to places that I had no idea I could go to,” Smith said.
Actors’ voices are constantly put under strain, especially in productions like musicals.
“When I first auditioned, I’d say I was okay at singing the parts, but I didn’t have all of the notes in my range or in the placement that I wanted. By the end, my voice fit the show perfectly; I was so thrilled, and really proud of myself,” Smith said. “It was extremely strenuous, and I know that anyone else who played Elle would have had a similar struggle. It’s a genius role, but also a challenging one.”
Creating the vast world of Elle Woods, Harvard, and the Delta Nu sorority was no easy task. It took innumerable hours of staging, set-building, costume designing and logistics to get everything just right.
“Legally Blonde” is a contemporary musical, and scenes are written cinematically in the sense that they bleed into each other, much like in movies.
“In New York, sets are moved by computer. Somebody pushes a button and they all move on their own with wenches and ropes and similar devices. But here, we have people moving them, so it’s much harder to coordinate all of the moving pieces,” theatre director Scott Taylor said.
Achieving the lead in a musical was a goal that Smith had been pursuing since elementary school.
“When I looked at the cast list and found out that I was Elle, I started bawling immediately,” Smith said “Becoming the lead in a musical has been my dream since 2nd grade.”
But Smith didn’t have much time to celebrate. Rehearsals started in October, immediately following the conclusion of auditions, and continued right up until opening night.
“When rehearsals started, most of them were music rehearsals, in order to learn all the songs. Eventually it progressed to dance and blocking rehearsals; cleaning the blocking rehearsals; full dress rehearsals; adding in light, sound, hair, and costume; and finally, the show,” Smith said.
The final dress rehearsals were some of the most challenging—mentally and physically—on every actor, technician and staff member.
“There were a lot of things that went wrong that shouldn’t have, but in the end, fear alone got the cast in-gear to really get going. Everyone put on their thinking caps and everything worked out just fine for opening night,” Smith said.
With all four public performances packed, to say that the audience liked the musical would be an understatement. Many audience members, like sophomore Alex Wells, left the production impressed.
Wells walked into the auditorium on Monday night with high expectations.
“I had heard from many people how amazing it was, so when I went, I was expecting a phenomenal show, and that’s what I got,” Wells said. “It was a great performance overall, and it was really awesome getting to see how talented the students at FMHS are. It’s really cool to watch someone you usually see walking through the halls transform into a completely different character on-stage.”
After the conclusion of the musical, Wells was very impressed by how elaborate some of the musical numbers were. As a trombonist involved in band, Wells thought that the scene involving a marching band and drill team was phenomenal.
“Not only did the actors use real trumpets, the costumers completely transformed our band uniforms and shakos into those of a UCLA marching band,” Wells said.
Although “Legally Blonde” is no longer being performed for the public, there is another opportunity for FMHS to be recognized; Dallas Summer Musicals is a competition where schools in the area enter their musicals for judging. Being selected from amongst the 52 schools would be an honor for the FMHS theatre program, as well as an amazing opportunity for the cast and crew involved in “Legally Blonde.”
“There are a number of different categories: best actor, best actress, best technician, best costumes, best direction and best musical, of course. Fifty-two schools compete, and nominations are announced sometime in April. Afterwards, the selected schools go to compete in Fair Park Music Hall,” Smith said.
Winning titles at the DSM competition is just one of the accolades that the cast, crew and staff receive for all of their hard work.
The road from auditions to opening night can be a long one for theatre students at FMHS, but the hard work and dedication of everyone involved makes the end result worth it.
