The musical Legally Blonde can share a deceptive appearance with its heroine, Elle Wood. It appears to be a happy wish-fulfillment college story in that cartoonish land of musical comedy created by the bouncy music and lyrics of Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin and the book by Heather Hach. Elle seems to be a typical California girl, a blonde sorority airhead majoring at UCLA in fashion merchandising and shopping  

But when her romantic dinner with Warner Huntington III results not in the engagement ring she expects but in Warner’s dumping her because she’s not serious enough to be the wife of a future senator, she suddenly has to start over and readjust some things, like her values and her estimate of herself. As the show opens with Elle and her sorority sisters giddily singing “Omigod You Guys,” you have to grant Warner Huntington III the possibility that he may be right. 

But he underestimates our Elle. Elle is not dumb. And she is fiercely determined to join Warner at Harvard Law and get him back. Granted, we may need to suspend our disbelief a little when she makes that leap to Harvard with a cheer-leader-majorette routine in the Law School’s admissions office. 

But as Elle gets more serious, so does the show. At Tesseract Theatre Company, director Will Bonfiglio’s careful direction keeps the balance right. Brittanie Gunn’s simplistic scenic design leaves the playing area at the Marcelle Theatre open to be easily and quickly filled by the table and chairs in a restaurant, the desk and chairs for an academic office, a raised platform for the judge in a courtroom, and the usual equipment for a beauty parlor, with the three walls filled what might be found on the walls of a dorm room, a legal office, or a dress shop, with two clothes-hanger racks to hold the dresses Elle can try on. David Pisoni was the scenic painter.  Designer Carly Uding dressed the cast in the clothes one would see on a campus or in a courtroom, with thoughtful consideration of the Playboy Bunny costume Elle wears to what she thinks will be a costume party. Sarah Gene Dowling designed the splendid blonde wig that Grace Seidel, who is not a blonde, convincingly wears to play Elle. Jo Polisac choreographed the sorority’s celebratory dances and Elle’s Harvard Law application. Haylie Gambos is the Marketing Manager. Larry D. Pry is the Music Director who as always makes the score yield what it should, Sarah Bascom is the Production Manager, Kevin “Kevlar” Sallwasser is the Technical Director, and Lexi Sims is the Stage Manager, assisted by Joe Cook and Joshua David Neighbors.

As Elle, Grace Seidel might not be a casting director’s first choice for a California blonde, but with help from director, designers, and fellow cast members she took us with her for all of Elle’s Harvard ups and downs. Mason Ramsey was appropriately superior and smarmy as the boyfriend who dumps her, Jonathan Hey was appropriately superior and smarmy as the law school professor who hits on her, and Kevin L. Corpuz was warm and wise as the grad teaching assistant who nourishes the real Elle. Dawn Schmid led a terrific jump-rope routine as the exercise guru whose murder case Elle wins, and Marsiya Miller painted a lovable comic portrait of Paulette, the hairdresser who bonds with Elle in mutual support for their trouble with men and who gives Elle the chance to realize how helpful knowing the law can be. Unfortunately I could not find a credit for the fine actor who plays the UPS man who brings Paulette a package. Natalie Sannes, Lillie Self-Miller, and Evan Lee play Elle’s Delta Nu sisters who form a Greek chorus of support for Elle with their high-energy singing and dancing. Aditi Seetharaman plays the new Harvard girlfriend of the boy who broke up with Elle, and Katie Orr plays a fellow student. Ella Drake, Martin Ibarra, Molly Stout, Kyle Rudolph, Loren Goudreau, and Audi Kadam play students and others as the Ensemble. 

The whole cast, designers, and other creatives convincingly make the legally happy world of Tesseract Theatre’s Legally Blonde. 

—Bob Wilcox

Photo courtesy of Tesseract Theatre