This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What does not kill us makes us hotter!

[0:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome, everybody, to a musical theater podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theater history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons. You can call me Jeff. Today, we are discussing the musical LEGALLY BLONDE, a listener request from both Jacob and David. Thank you, boys. Here to discuss it is a Broadway veteran who's been seen in Annie Get Your Gun and Sweet Charity. Also, I was doing a deep dive on you, Nikki, the amount of touring that you did.

[0:46] Nikki Snelson: A lot of touring. I loved it. I love touring.

[0:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Good for you. She also just so happened to originate the role of exercise guru Brooke Wyndham in LEGALLY BLONDE. She's now a respected director-choreographer. I have witnessed her get plenty of dancers whipped into shape. By the way, I'm not trying to be cute. I'm serious. Everyone, please welcome the amazing Nikki Snelson!

[1:09] Nikki Snelson: Hi, guys! Yay! Thank you for having me, Jeffrey.

[1:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, I would start by asking you if LEGALLY BLONDE is still a part of your life, except I already know the answer. Yes, tonight, I'm opening a production of LEGALLY BLONDE at Orange County School of the Arts, which is just amazing. It's the school where Susan Egan and Stephanie J. Block and Matt Morrison grew up, matriculated from, and the talent is just unbelievable. So it's so fun to have it on in very young, fresh bodies who are keen to play. It's perfect.

[1:42] Nikki Snelson: That's really cool. That's awesome. It must be kind of trippy to see kids in 2026 tackling something that premiered on Broadway in 2007. That's crazy.

[1:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Please don't bring it up. It's a 20-year anniversary next year.

[1:56] Nikki Snelson: 20 years. My gosh. It premiered in 2007 on Broadway. When did you become involved? Can you take me through the story? What was going on in your life?

[2:04] Nikki Snelson: Yeah, so I was involved from the very start. I got off the national tour of Tick, Tick, Boom. I was playing Susan, and I met Larry O'Keefe, and we very quickly became fast friends, and I started doing concerts for him. Composer Larry O'Keefe and his wonderful wife, Nell Benjamin, wrote the music and lyrics. He had just had a huge success with Bat Boy, and I started doing concerts for him around New York City, and the opportunity for Larry and Nell came up to possibly audition to write Legally Blonde. So they had a bunch of different writers audition for the commission to write the music and lyrics to Legally Blonde, and I sang on the very first demo recording of Oh My God, You Guys that they presented to get them the job to write the musical.

So they were told to write three songs, and they did Oh My God, You Guys, and Serious, and I want to say the remix, or it might have been the ballad, but I sat in a room at Larry and Nell's house with Leslie Kritzer, and Carrie Butler was Elle at the time. It was wild. Throughout that whole workshop process, we had Carrie Butler was Elle, Matt Morrison was Warner, David Duchovny was Callahan, Rachel Dratch was Paulette. At some point, we had this round robin swinging door of incredible talent that would be in there, but we sang that opening number, and it is an earworm to beat the band. It's one of the biggest, it's the catchiest tune around, and you kind of want to kill yourself because you just cannot stop hearing Oh My God, You Guys. But I just thought, oh, there's really something here. It's so funny. It's got so much heart. So we started workshopping the first act, and I'd say we did that for a solid six months to a year.

[3:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, wow, really?

[3:59] Nikki Snelson: We'd just constantly get together, yeah, in either Larry and Nell's house, or we'd be in a studio running it, and I just kept thinking, I'm getting too old. I'm getting too old. We have to hurry this up. I'm not going to be a sorority girl. Can we speed along? We're not even in the second act yet. I think I was like...

[4:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, because at this point, you're just like Delta Nu, right? I'm not just, but you know what I mean.

[4:23] Nikki Snelson: But I was doing all the first act stuff, so I was a Delta Nu, and I was thrilled to be a Delta Nu, and I was there for the process. But I was about 27 or 28, and I'm like, TikTok, we got to go, people. Nobody's going to believe me as a college student for much longer. So then one magical day, they're like, all right, we think we got act one down pretty solid. Let's look at act two. And I had been on this fitness journey in my life where I was going to Bikram Yoga every morning, 90 minutes of hot yoga, sweating. I was literally not eating any carbs. My body was just snatched beyond...

[5:02] Nikki Snelson: Snatched, I was going to say. There's only one word for that, and it is snatched.

[5:05] Nikki Snelson: That is, it was snatched. I was snatched. And it didn't even dawn on me. I don't know why I knew the movie. I loved the movie, but the aerobics instructor didn't even dawn on me. And we came in to read down act two as they had it, and they said, you're going to be Brooke Wyndham. And I was like, what? Who's Brooke Wyndham? And they were like, the aerobics instructor. And I was like, I am Brooke Wyndham. Oh, my God. And that's why it's so fun now. I remember that moment so clearly, but it's so spoken in my voice. It's so clearly me. And so anyway, we started workshopping that.

[5:46] Nikki Snelson: Cheers. Too early.

[5:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So sweet.

[5:49] Nikki Snelson: And it was all different things. So for a while, it was a step aerobic number. I think it was like a jazzercise moment, if you can believe that, for a while. So the lyrics kept changing. The melody was always the same, but it wasn't always whipped into shape because that's when the jump ropes came in.

[6:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, because of the whip, right.

[6:07] Nikki Snelson: Right. So we workshopped all these different versions of it. And then in the end, they decided that we all had to come after all these workshops and readings for like a final callback before we did the big workshops.

[6:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, okay. So this isn't even like before?

[6:23] Nikki Snelson: We did all the readings, right? And then we were going to do the big, the workshops where you get to be on the percentage of the revenue. I don't even know if they do that anymore. But this is a big deal, right? So for those that don't know, if you workshop a new show, and I don't know that they do it anymore, but the cast, because they have a say in how the show turns out, we split 1% of the revenue of the show forevermore. So, you know, when they do a London production, we sometimes get a check, which is really fun. Anyway, so I went into this audition, I had had a callback for Elphaba the day before, and I thought it would be, oh, yeah, oh, yeah. And I thought it would be a really great idea to dye my hair black. Now, I don't know if you know, but when you go from being white bleach blonde to black, it's a process. And it's really a process to get back from black.

[7:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I was going to say, return.

[7:20] Nikki Snelson: There must have been two days. So it must have been my callback for Elphaba was on Tuesday morning. And I must have been told Tuesday afternoon that my final, am I going to be Brooke Wyndham was going to be on Thursday. So here I am sitting there with my black hair, panicking, and I'm like, we got it, I got to get back to blonde. So I tried to get back to blonde, I looked like Pikachu, my hair was orange, I had to wear a wig to the final callback, it was so messy. I had a long blonde wig that I wore to the final callback. And at this point, I was like, they are not giving this part to somebody else. Damn it. This is my part. All that sacrifice, all those lack of carbs, I was like, I am going to show them what's up.

So I wore like a rip away, zip up tracksuit thing. This is so fun. Oh, it's well, I mean, come on, it's your Mitchell, you're gonna be full out. I went, Hi, I'm Brooke Wyndham. And I like ripped off my thing. And I had my abs, my, my abs were all there. And I started laughing because they all fell out. And then I couldn't remember which version of the song it was. So I went, Hi, I'm Brooke Wyndham and welcome back to the Wyndham workout disc two challenge. And I started to sing and I was like, do you want an easy? Couldn't remember which version of the song it was. But I was standing there in my blonde wig and my abs and they decided that that was enough apparently. Don't try that at home kids.

Don't try that at home. Best callback story. It's mortified in the wig. I didn't know this story, but I did not know that underneath. Oh, underneath the hair was Pikachu. I bet when I spun around, I bet the wig went creak. I'm sure I was like, hanging off my head. Disaster.

[9:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Just the side part to the back.

[9:10] Nikki Snelson: So silly.

[9:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that.

[9:17] Nikki Snelson: So you're workshopping the show, you get this role. It's happening. You guys go to San Francisco, right? For your tryout. Is that true? And at this point, is the show fully done? Or are you going out of town knowing that there's still more work to do?

[9:33] Nikki Snelson: Pretty much. It was there. There were so many incarnations. They couldn't figure out for the longest time what Paulette's first song would be. That became Ireland, right?

[9:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. The one that became Ireland. There was a time where they had a song about how men were like dogs because the dogs are an ever-present theme in Legally Blonde. So it was like, good boy, bad boy or something. And it was all about that. And then the song that would become positive used to be called Love and War. And it was a little more violent. And they thought perhaps that wasn't the song for the little girls in pink party dresses coming to see Legally Blonde. That song started off with, grab a shovel and a sack, give her head a good hard whack, which was hilarious. And it's very on brand for Larry O'Keefe.

[10:29] Nikki Snelson: When you're like, okay, bad boy, I now see that this is the same.

[10:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, for sure. So there was some tweaking to be done. I'll never forget the first time we heard Ireland and we're like, right, that's it. That's it. And to be honest, we weren't sure what the audience would think about certain things. So the audience went crazy for Whipped Into Shape, but that didn't always happen on Broadway. But one of the things that we weren't sure about was the big Irish dance section in the remix. We had no idea. Yeah, because that also kind of happened because Larry was twinkling the ivories one day and some of the boys started jigging around and that's kind of how it ended up in the show. So we weren't sure how the audience would feel about it and they went crazy. And I remember standing with Christian Borle and him being like, so I guess that's in.

So yeah, there were certain things that had been really well thought out. Both Larry and Nell and Heather are incredibly smart. Heather's the book writer. And Larry and Nell went to Harvard. So the way they had...

[11:38] Nikki Snelson: Oh yeah. Yeah, they met at Harvard. Yeah. So the way they had structured the piece was just so smart. It flowed so well. And Jerry Mitchell, this was the perfect first show for him to be at the helm of all by himself.

[11:43] Nikki Snelson: Oh my gosh, I didn't know that.

[11:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So up until this point, director, choreographer, Jerry Mitchell was choreographer Jerry Mitchell, right?

[11:56] Nikki Snelson: Right. Yeah. And this was his first full undertaking. Had you worked with him before?

[12:02] Nikki Snelson: I had not. I had not. So I came into it kind of feeling like I had to prove myself because also he had a whole arsenal of hairspray people that he was...

[12:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, he's very loyal.

[12:15] Nikki Snelson: Yes, exactly. So I do recall in the workshops, me kind of going way out of my way to impress him. At one point he said, walk over here. And I did a front walkover over there. And he was like, I just want you to walk over here. And I was like, well, you can't replace me now. I can take the note. That's so extra, but also so Brooke, so good for you.

[12:42] Nikki Snelson: Listen, and then I think I felt like I proved myself to him, but he is so loyal and so wonderful. And he was the perfect person, especially for Legally Blonde, because it is a show that you have to lead with such positivity and joy. And he was always full out. And we were always jumping rope every day at the beginning of rehearsal, whether you were Callahan or Paulette or me, you were going to jump that rope and he was jumping with us. And it just fostered this super loving, super kind environment, which is what Legally Blonde needed to be. So it was perfection.

[13:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's fab. Now I'm thinking, because I didn't realize that the Out of Town was in San Francisco.

[13:28] Nikki Snelson: Yes.

[13:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I'm thinking, okay, 2007, Golden Gate Theater, an interesting place for Legally Blonde.

[13:37] Nikki Snelson: The Tenderloin, yes.

[13:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. And by the way, love San Francisco.

[13:43] Nikki Snelson: It's really turning around. There's some really cool stuff happening in the city now. But back then... Well, San Francisco is my favorite place. It's my favorite city in the country, along with Boston, where I went to school. But yeah, it was shocking because we'd be walking from our housing to the theater, and we'd see everybody dressed in pink going to the theater. And then we'd also see heroin addicts shooting up on the corner. And it was a wild dichotomy to be going to do this big, pink, high-energy show and see this chaos around us. Somebody had said that Canada had shipped all of their homeless people down to San Francisco right before that, and that's what we were dealing with, unhoused people, I should say. But it was wild. Little girls in pink party dresses stepping over guys. It's fascinating, but you're not there long. Is it pretty clear that it's going straight to Broadway after San Francisco?

[14:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, yeah. I think we did a four-week run. And we may have even already known we were going to Broadway. It's always that thing of, do we have a theater? And what theater do we have? This particular show felt like it had to have a huge theater, just because of the scale of the show. It needed to be in a marquee or a palace. So then we found out we were going to the palace. And we had probably two months before we went back into rehearsal. So we essentially went home, did Christmas break, and then came back to New York and hit the ground running again. But mostly, it stayed intact.

[15:20] Nikki Snelson: Wow. That's amazing. So back in 2007, I was in college and was even more insufferable than I am now. I thought I knew everything. And I remember seeing, I think it was on Good Morning America, was my first interaction with Legally Blonde. They were performing, y'all were performing. By the way, did you have the first act off, or were you hidden?

[15:46] Nikki Snelson: No, I was in, oh my God, you guys. It was weird. In the workshops, I was in all the big dance numbers in the opening number. My name was Shandi Holland, which was Miss USA's first name and Miss America's last name put together, Shandi Holland. Ridiculous. But Equity came in and said, because my part was a principal part, I could only be in one other scene as someone else. Whatever that was. So yeah, I was in, oh my God, you guys. And then Crunched. I did lots of crunches for act one. Get ready, baby. So I remember seeing, oh my gosh, you guys, in the opener on Good Morning America. And it was the scene, it's the famous scene from the movie. I mean, it's Courtney Take a Break, right? She's buying a dress and the sales girl tries to pull one over her.

And when I saw it musicalized, I remember, and this is, I'm being vulnerable here. I remember rolling my eyes because I was like, oh, this is the problem translating film to stage is that you take this small moment and then you blow it up into like a 40-second musical moment and it feels like overkill, right? And of course, because I'm in college, I was like, well, that's my opinion on the show. And that's that. Then the Tony Awards come around and Legally Blonde doesn't get nominated for Best Musical, even though it gets nominated for some other things. It's the same season as Spring Awakening. And I feel like, I don't know, I just, I feel like there were a lot of people who were rolling their eyes at the show in the same way that I was rolling my eyes at it.

And what's interesting is that now, 20 years later, looking back on it, I think next to Spring Awakening, it is the most important musical of that entire season. The cultural footprint is huge. It's coming out right during the Wild West of reality shows. So we get The Search for Elle Woods, which we're definitely going to have to talk about. Internet culture gives birth to memes. And I just said, Courtney, take a break. It feels like the first big musical meme that I remember materializing. And then the cast, you guys are all freaking stars. And then the fact that all of the original critics, we all must have had sticks up our butts because with time, I now see how freaking tight this musical is, like structurally, as strong as the pyramids. So what was going on? What was wrong with us? What were we missing?

[18:14] Nikki Snelson: So I think that we, you know, we talked about this a lot when it first opened, because it was a huge success in London and won the Olivier Award. And we weren't even nominated for a Tony. So I think that the critics decided before ever seeing it that what it was.

[18:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, they were like me. We saw Good Morning America and made up our minds or whatever, you know?

[18:36] Nikki Snelson: And I think there was like the marketing said it was like the big pink blonde musical. And everyone said that's what that is. And didn't really give it a chance. And it was coming off like a lot of jukebox musicals. And there was a lot of backlash from that from like, and all shook up and stuff. And then it was turning into this movies being turned into musicals. And I think that people were like, we just want something new. We want something fresh. We want something that's never been done before. It's never going to be as good as Hairspray. And I think there was this stigma because when the reviews came out, I remember even thinking, did they see the show? Because the show, it's so smart. It's so well written.

It's so tongue in cheek and campy. And I think that maybe they missed the point. So I think they thought, oh my god, you guys was a very literal portrayal of what we thought these girls were. When if you know Larry and Nell, it's a super sardonic, sarcastic. There's always a little bit of satirical.

[19:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, yeah.

[19:42] Nikki Snelson: And it was almost as though they missed the satire part, and took it for face value, which is not what it is. There's so many layers. I really I do think, yes, the Courtney, take your break. Yes, the MTV of it all. But I really do think it's just one of the smartest musicals, the way it flows together, the way each song propels the story, which a lot of times in these musicals that are taken from a movie, they don't have that. And so I think they missed the point, to be honest. But I do think it's now revered as being incredibly smart. And especially now, I staged in the production that I'm doing right now, I staged the harassment scene on the day that the Cornell seven thing hit the fan. And it's so important now, you know, we thought it was important then and now it's still going on.

Women are, you know, still being put in boxes and taken for granted and harassed and nobody's sticking up for them. So I think it's sticking up for each other. Like, yes. So so ahead of its time in terms of like, the hero being the other woman, right?

[20:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yep, absolutely.

[20:53] Nikki Snelson: That's so cool. I yeah, I love there's kind of a requirement for the AFI Film Institute, you know, whatever that if you're going to include a film as one of the all time greats, a certain number of years have to pass before it's even allowed to be considered. And I think it's because for of things like this, that sometimes we just don't have the perspective because of everything that's around us for all of the biases, and even just allowing time to reveal what is it was actually inspired and ahead of its time, even just like Joseph and his amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Anyway.

[21:29] Nikki Snelson: Well, it's also it reminds me of like, when A Chorus Line in Chicago came out at the same time, and it's what the it's what the culture needs. Do we need the dark? Or do we need the light right now? And I think at the time, we wanted the dark because culturally, we were in a light place.

[21:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, so it just depends on what we need. And I think we need the light right now.

[21:53] Nikki Snelson: So amen to that. Amen. And, and, you know, I even was wondering a few years back when, when we were having more discussions about representation, like, I wasn't sure if Legally Blonde was going to continue to have a place on stage if, you know, for example, we couldn't do diverse casting in the role of L or, you know, like, or, you know, do adding some new and interesting element. I didn't know if the show could continue as it had always been. I will say that those fears have been quelled. Is that the correct word? Yeah, they've gone away. Because I think that Elle Woods is so unapologetically herself that anybody can relate to that and see themselves in her regardless of how and I mean, and it is truly the color of her skin, the color of her hair, it doesn't matter, right?

[22:48] Nikki Snelson: Well, it's Elle Woods is kind of a state of mind more than and it's really fun. Like, I've done productions where she's had two dads and I've done productions. And what's amazing about Larry and Nell and Heather is they've taken great care to make sure that everyone can do the show. So for instance, in Harvard, there was a character named which at various universities, maybe you didn't have someone of Indian descent. And then, you know, you were cultural appropriating. So they wrote a new character named Cesar Tepes, who's more of like a mini Putin. So you if you have the people to do certain roles, then you can do it. But there is a whole separate piece of information. So that you're not being offensive, right? That's really cool.

[23:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, before we dive into the show, because I want to talk about things from your director brain. We need to talk about the source material itself. Right? So we already said 2001 film first, but before it was a film, it was a novel. I did not know this. Amanda Brown wrote this novel, based on her experiences going to Stanford Law as a blonde and always reading Elle magazine. Oh, there it is. And then that manuscript comes across the desk and correct me if I'm wrong, of Mark Platt, who, of course, is, you know, universal and the name behind Wicked. So it gets turned into a movie, but with someone who has an eye for musical theater. It gets turned into a movie. It's a huge hit, because it's actually quite a small budget.

Reese Witherspoon, of course, is iconic in the role. And I think that, like you said, Elle is a state of mind to the point now that we have this new Amazon series that's kind of like the prequel of her. The spirit of Elle Woods is something that people continually want to tap into. I remember seeing the movie in a movie theater. And when Bend and Snap happened, I remember thinking, well, this is a musical. It has to be a musical. And then, you know, I think in association with MGM and then Fox Theatricals were our producers. So Mike Isaacson, who runs the Muny now, and Kristen and Dory, and we have the most incredible producing team. And they really fostered it and really loved it and really nurtured it.

And it's fun to see the characters from the movie evolve into what became the musical. But because the movie was such a beloved hit, it definitely put us on our toes in that when we talked about earlier about the reviews, unfortunately, people just are like, oh, is Laura Bell Reese Witherspoon? You know, is that Victor Garber up there? You know, there's a lot of comparison that ends up happening, which it's a whole new entity. So it makes it kind of unfair, you know, in a way. And Laura Bell's this incredible triple threat. She can dance, she can do all these things. And she's got this Lucille Ball kind of over the top, amazing, sticky comedy in her. Yeah, which is a very different skill set than Reese Witherspoon, who is also incredibly wonderful. But I hated that there was a lot of like, let's compare these two things.

[26:18] Nikki Snelson: It's true, because when you have a Kinky Boots, and honestly, most people haven't seen the movie, then you already have kind of bypassed any of those pitfalls, right? Where everybody had seen. Yeah, even with Hairspray, it was more of a cult classic, like it wasn't a huge super mega hit. So that was kind of wild. But that's interesting.

[26:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. All right. Well, let's talk about some of these characters, right? And we'll kind of go through the show a little bit. The show begins with this huge sequence. It's interesting that this score that Larry O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin have created is incredibly cinematic. And I think it's one of the most successful parts of the show is that the songs are super catchy, and yet are, in many ways, scene songs and help the show move cinematically in the way that the source material is cinematic. It's something that we really struggle with, I think, when bringing movies to the stage, and they do it so effortlessly.

[27:26] Nikki Snelson: Well, it seems like it, but it took years.

[27:28] So, now that you have directed it and know the show so well, it feels like such a seamless show. What kind of tech requirements are needed to make that happen?

[27:42] So, what's wonderful about my journey now with Legally Blonde is having been with it from the very beginning. And we, one day in rehearsal, they brought a bus and we went out to New Jersey to see these crazy sets that were going to be our Broadway sets, The Giant House and all of that. And I've done it in productions like that. But then I've also done it at a high school in Singapore where they didn't have that kind of a budget. And it's so fun to do the different versions of it, to do the one that has millions of dollars thrown at it, and then to do the ones that don't. And there are ways of working around that for me, and I'm sure the actors hate me for it. But my favorite part is the transitions.

So, from scene to scene, I will either have it danced through or I will have the actors being a part of the set changes so that the story kind of never stops and that the audience knows where to look. So, even in a production where we don't have a fly rail that's going to make that so much more seamless, we'll have actors moving set pieces on and off while Emmett's making a cross that's going to tell a certain story so that we can keep it as tight and right as possible. And that's been a really fun journey and a creative process, yeah, to make happen.

[28:59] And it's something that I even remember Jerry Mitchell doing in Full Monty, where there would be a transition of one of the boys trying to figure out pelvic thrust across the stage while the scene. So, he really did kind of, I think, elevate cinematic transitions in musicals.

[29:17] Jeff Parsons: He is incredible. I mean, it's one of his specialties. And it's been nice for me through my years to kind of take grab bag stuff from all my favorite directors. And that's one of the things from him that I just so cherish. I was doing The Cher Show, actually, at the Moonlight in San Diego this past year. And I sent Jerry a message and I said, I was thinking of you today as I was trying to make all the transitions work. And I learned that by watching you and I'm so appreciative of it.

[29:45] Nikki Snelson: Oh, that's so sweet. I love that. So, the opener has all of these transitions. We're going in and out of the Delta Nu sorority house. I think a lot of, you mentioned Cornell, there's been so much talk recently about fraternities and sororities. Were you ever?

[30:00] Jeff Parsons: No. I went to a conservatory, so that wasn't an option.

[30:05] Nikki Snelson: Me either. Well, BYU, are there? I can't imagine that there are fraternities in BYU. Can you imagine? That would be hilarious. We would have family home evening and scripture study. I think that's about as much as it goes.

[30:19] Jeff Parsons: More of that, more of that.

[30:22] Nikki Snelson: But I do know that a lot of connection, a lot of camaraderie, and a lot of family stem from these organizations. And in the case of Delta Nu, there's this deep sisterhood that we see immediately between all of these girls, as silly as they may seem, and their president is Elle Woods. Now, talk to me about this gal. Who is Elle?

[30:47] Jeff Parsons: Oh, that's so good. So I think that we, as a team, when we created this, it was so fun to see the camaraderie that we as a cast could bring into it exactly like you would in a sorority. And Laura Bell had an amazing way as well of kind of having that Jerry Mitchell energy, that positivity that would trickle down. So I think even from the movie, Elle Woods is somebody that's always leading with kindness. She's always seeing the good in people, even to a fault of her own sometimes. And she's always one to prop people up and make people feel good about themselves, no matter what, even in that scene where she's telling Courtney, you can't use a half loop stitch on China silk. She's not shaming her.

She's just very matter of factly telling her the information that she has. And it's not to embarrass her in any way. There's not a mean bone in her body. Almost to a fault of her own where she doesn't see the darkness in people sometimes. And then that gets her in certain situations. But I think the reason why she's kind of the president of the Delta Nu sorority and why everybody on that stage loves her is because she's always leading with kindness and looking out for other people.

[32:00] Nikki Snelson: Thank you for that. She is such a good leader. And you're right that she shows you can stand up for yourself without being mean.

[32:10] Jeff Parsons: Yep.

[32:11] Nikki Snelson: Or compromising who you are. And that's throughout. At the beginning, she's obsessed with a boy, as we can often be. And she's hoping to get a ring from this guy named Warner. Of course, Warner breaks up with her. And it feels like the end of her world. So, right off the bat, we have this very nuanced character who is clearly smart. She doesn't suffer fools, but she also doesn't make them suffer for being fools. And then is also totally confused about her self-esteem when it comes to this boy. So, a very relatable and honestly nuanced character.

[32:50] Jeff Parsons: Absolutely. And at the time when we opened, we didn't have this queen culture that we have now, where I think it's been brought about about social media, where if you're pining over a boy and he's not calling you back, there's going to be somebody on social media telling you, you're a queen, that's peasant energy. Don't worry about it. We didn't have that back in the day. We just pined for the boy. And it's funny, there's so many of those memes and gifs out there that say, live your life like Elle Woods, the day that Warner broke up with her. You know what I mean? Suddenly, you have to do this huge pivot. And at the time, she was pivoting for the wrong reasons. It was to get him back, but who knew what life would ensue out of that?

[33:33] Nikki Snelson: Look, sometimes we do things for weird reasons, but aren't we glad we did?

[33:37] Jeff Parsons: Yeah, absolutely. And what's really lovely about their relationship is throughout, it comes out that maybe he was just making these choices based on family pressures, or based on what he thought he needed to do to get to be a senator or whatever. And they end up having a very sweet relationship in the end, because they weren't right for each other, but they end up being friends. And he learns a lot, too, throughout the process. So, it's fun. It was really fun to watch Laura Bell and Richard create those characters, because they had been children in Sound of Music together on Broadway before that.

[34:10] Nikki Snelson: What?

[34:10] Jeff Parsons: So yeah, it was wild to see Brigitte and I don't know, whoever he was.

[34:17] Nikki Snelson: Kurt.

[34:18] Jeff Parsons: Because somebody created these characters.

[34:21] Nikki Snelson: God bless Kurt.

[34:21] Jeff Parsons: It was just this year that I realized that Laura Bell Bundy's in Jumanji.

[34:26] Nikki Snelson: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it's one of my child's favorite movies. It's so fun to watch.

[34:32] Jeff Parsons: I think her casting, too, because Bonnie Hunt plays that character later. And it's just brilliant.

[34:40] Nikki Snelson: It's just brilliant casting.

[34:41] Jeff Parsons: All right. So, like you said, live your life like Elle Woods. She decides, well, then I need to be a lawyer. I need to be serious, right? Because he keeps saying, I need more of a Jackie, less of a Marilyn.

[34:52] Nikki Snelson: Now yet another interesting part of who she is, she needs to actually study for the first time in her life to get these LSATs underway and is able to get a score that gets her into Stanford. This brings us to, I think, maybe the most brilliant sequence in the entire show, which is What You Want.

[35:13] Jeff Parsons: This whole sequence, What You Want, where she's studying, where she goes and does her personal essay in front of the board, it makes me so happy. And the cast album that you guys did is so great. I just put that track on and it's a good seven minutes of my drive that I'm just delighted.

[35:35] Nikki Snelson: It's so funny because directing it, I always forget how it's so big.

[35:42] Jeff Parsons: Huge.

[35:42] Nikki Snelson: It's huge. It's probably, I mean, it's the biggest number I've probably ever had to work on. It goes on and on and there's so much storytelling in it. She decides she's going to go to Harvard. She gets the girls involved. She gets her dad to pay for it. She gets Kate to help her study for it. She finally gets the grade all while this DJ, Grandmaster Chad is, you know,

[36:07] rapping at her.

[36:09] And then they get to Harvard. There's the Harvard admissions moment. And then they all come bursting in to convince the Harvard people to let her go there. So it replaces in the movie what would be her video she sends in, in the pool. And I remember the first time they laid it out for us and my job was on the floor. I couldn't believe it. Again, Larry and Nell and Heather are just geniuses. And the way it all is just so stamped with Larry tongue-in-cheekness. The fact that the reggaeton moment happens while she's trying to study is just so fun.

[36:47] And even just funny little jokes where it's like, we went to the extent to not only call out JetBlue, but then have the pilot there to say, thank you. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's so silly, but so worth it.

[37:00] Jeff Parsons: I can only imagine the customer being like, do I really need to have an entire JetBlue uniform?

[37:07] Nikki Snelson: Yes.

[37:07] Jeff Parsons: For this one job.

[37:08] Nikki Snelson: That's hysterical.

[37:09] Nikki Snelson: We have to have it.

[37:09] Jeff Parsons: It's that important.

[37:09] So once she's at Harvard, we get a whole new cast of characters, but we should probably talk about Vivian. And because I think that she seems like the nemesis and the villain to begin with. Do you think she is all that different from Nell? I mean, she shows up at the same beauty parlor.

[37:28] Nikki Snelson: Yeah, no, it's that's such, oh, that's so interesting. I'm going to use that little soundbite. It's so interesting, because really, Vivian's got her, you know, her eye on the prize, and she really knows what she wants. And it's not necessarily that she wants Warner, it's that Warner fits in her picture of what she thinks her life needs to look like. And she's going to do everything she can to get there. And it was really fun to have, especially Kate Shindle, who had just several years prior been Miss America, you know, so she is also...

[38:04] Jeff Parsons: That's right. I forgot that President Kate had been...

[38:07] Nikki Snelson: Yes, she's lived 10 lives, 10 lives.

[38:10] Jeff Parsons: She really has. That's crazy.

[38:13] Nikki Snelson: So it's funny for this person who we keep talking about having this mousy brown bob and being, I mean, she's fabulous. She was Miss America.

[38:22] Jeff Parsons: That's incredible.

[38:23] Nikki Snelson: I'll tell you a little story about that in a moment. But it was so fun to watch the two of them in all of their power and all of their glory, and Laura Bell having this bubbly, flitty around energy, and Kate having this very stoic still energy, and watching them come together. Because one of the first things that Elle says to her is we can't make ourselves look good by making each other look bad. Which is that girl moment that we don't always have. We don't always have females looking out for females, and females helping other females succeed.

[38:59] Jeff Parsons: And to which Vivian says, I didn't make you look bad. You just weren't prepared, which is her truth and is the truth.

[39:05] Nikki Snelson: Which is absolutely valid.

[39:08] So they both get to learn a lot from each other, even though they're both in love with the same boy. Apparently, it becomes nothing about that. It becomes about their own personal journey together. Sidebar, when it was the anniversary of Kate becoming Miss America, we had a party, and she brought her crown. And we all dressed up because it was the Miss America anniversary.

[39:30] Jeff Parsons: That's incredible.

[39:31] Nikki Snelson: We all tried on the Miss America crown. Hilarious.

[39:34] Jeff Parsons: Is it hefty?

[39:36] Nikki Snelson: The crown is pretty hefty, yeah. And she had won. She was wearing shorts. She didn't win the swimsuit competition. She was kind of like the new woman. She was the first person.

[39:47] Jeff Parsons: Radical.

[39:49] Nikki Snelson: So radical.

[39:53] Jeff Parsons: I love it.

[39:54] Nikki Snelson: That's incredible. We'll enter another boy, Emmett, who, of course, I love. I think we all love Emmett. But it's so interesting as we're talking about these characters, I'm realizing how much community and help there is in this show.

[40:11] Everybody is lifting each other up in sometimes weird and different ways, but Emmett's another one who, for some reason, sees something in Elle and I think sees her positivity, especially around maybe some of the more cynical members of the Harvard community, and sees it as a breath of fresh air. What else do you think about this guy?

[40:33] Nikki Snelson: So, Emmett, it's so funny that you bring this up. I just this last week or so was looking at their relationship and thinking, when he got to school, he was from the slums of Boston, and he was around a lot of super posh people. So he didn't fit in. He was kind of an outcast. He didn't fit in in this blue blood society of people that do crew and polo. He was from the sticks. And so he always felt other. And I think what he really relates to

[41:10] Nikki Snelson: And that he wants to make her feel like she belongs by telling his story.

[41:17] Nikki Snelson: And "Chip on My Shoulder" is hands down my favorite song in the whole show. It is such a good song. I love it and Christian Borle. I mean, come on, he's a national treasure. But he is hysterical.

[41:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You're not wrong.

[41:29] Nikki Snelson: And the first time I ever heard "Chip," I went to Larry and I said, this feels like "Salisbury Hill," Peter Gabriel. He said, we wanted it to sound like a Peter Gabriel anthem. So I was so excited.

[41:38] Nikki Snelson: Oh, my gosh, you totally got it. It feels like that. Yeah. And "Chip" is another one, just like what you want. The storytelling that happens during "Chip," we go through almost a whole year of storytelling.

[41:51] Nikki Snelson: And sacrifice, right? I think that for all of Elle's strengths, her privilege hasn't really required her to sacrifice very much. And "Chip on My Shoulder" reveals those opportunities.

[42:05] Nikki Snelson: Yeah. When he makes her, not makes her, but he suggests maybe you don't go home for Thanksgiving break. Maybe you stay here and work hard. Yeah, absolutely. It's really neat.

[42:15] Nikki Snelson: We need to talk about Paulette, who, of course, in the film was legendarily played by Jennifer Coolidge. They really smartly kept the spirit of who she is, but she feels like her own character in the musical. It's not a recreation of the movie. I don't know how they landed on the "Celtic Sounds" CD, but that is such a vibe. And anybody who grew up actually watching commercials on television knows that Paulette absolutely called that number and got that CD of "Celtic Sounds" to listen to and escape to. Talk to me about this woman. She has recently broken up with a man. So once again, there's kind of an empathy element with Elle. She's missing her dog. All of these people, I'm realizing, they see themselves in Elle and I guess just in each other in general.

[43:10] Nikki Snelson: Yeah. So Paulette, throughout the workshop process, there were a lot of different Paulettes and it never quite hit until it was Orfeh in the room. And Orfeh had come off of her turn in "Saturday Night Fever" where she also played, you know, that is kind of, for all intents and purposes, just crapped on by everyone. And so I think when we kind of first meet Paulette, she has been in that pickle and she has someone seeing potential in her. Elle sees potential in her and is able to help her get her dog back and advocate for herself, which is so great. But something about Orfeh bringing in her rock star energy to the room really elevated the whole situation. And I have no idea how Larry and Nell came to the Ireland of it all.

But what's really great about them is they are so open that I could literally see them like they can pull a reference out of nowhere. They're the quickest people in the room at any given time. And when they finally landed on that, the whole Celtic Ireland moment, it was a beautiful moment in the room. They came in and they were like, we've got it. We finally figured it out. And then they played it for us. And we all said, well, yeah, that's it. It's wild. It's as ridiculous as it is heartfelt. One hundred percent. Not easy to do. One hundred percent. Absolutely. Elle, honestly, through this community that she's able to find at Harvard, is becoming a lawyer.

[44:45] Nikki Snelson: Yeah. Yeah. She's really gaining knowledge and skills and impressing this Professor Callahan, who, of course, is going to take on all of these interns sooner than later, because there's this criminal case against the exercise queen, Brooke Wyndham. So let's talk about Brooke, shall we? Let's talk about her. She is hardcore. But she's also a Delta Nu. And I read the script before chatting with you. It reads on the page that she's tough as nails until Elle brings up Delta Nu. And then some of that melts away and all of a sudden their sisterhood to depend on.

[45:27] Nikki Snelson: Yeah. Tell me about it from your take. So it's interesting because in the movie, Ali Larter plays it really tough, really tough, really cold. There's some very iconic lines that we couldn't put in the musical because there's a lot of language about why she's with the much older man.

[45:48] Nikki Snelson: Oh, that's right. Oh, my gosh. I forgot. Yes. Yeah. I didn't make it this way into the musical. But then, you know, then Elle reveals herself as being a Delta Nu and she feels safe with her to tell her her secret. And then just in true Larry and Nell and Heather fashion that we spend the entire second act trying to protect her secret that she reveals at the eleventh hour in front of a giant group of people anyway. So at the end, when she says no one had to know that I had liposuction on my thighs and the whole situation is negated and we could have skipped it. Are you kidding me? So fun. It is. It was one of my favorite things to do every night that I would yell that out. And I think that's the thing about Elle. I think Elle makes people feel safe, people. She makes people feel seen. She makes people feel safe. And that's part of her magic.

[46:41] Nikki Snelson: So during this trial, there are a lot of memorable moments there right there. And I know this might sound strange, but it's the first time I remember a gay joke being in a musical that didn't offend me as much as say, like, "Keep It Gay" in "The Producers." And I know I'm probably being a snowflake about this, but sometimes the producers I'm like, oh, yay, being gay is a joke with "Gay or European." I feel like it's a little bit different because it's about Americans dealing with our own homophobia and figuring out, like, how is Europe so okay with being flamboyant? And do you know that makes sense?

[47:22] Nikki Snelson: Yes. And it's one of those things where in our crazy cancel culture that we have right now, it's one of those things that I keep waiting for somebody to say that "Gay or European" is not okay. But it's not because it's not offensive. The way they play it out, it's just like facts, like he's wearing pointy toes, you know, he's got a fancy shirt on. And the Nikos and Carlos that I mean, I've probably done the production 12 or 16 times now. It's always such a fun moment for somebody in the ensemble to step out and to really shine. And yeah, I mean, the audience loses it every time. And they were so smart by naming it there right there. It's like the Val song in "A Chorus Line." "Dance 10 Looks 3." It's not "Tits and Ass" because we're giving the joke away. But I'll never forget the first time Callahan said, is he gay? Of course he's gay or European. And the audience lost their minds. They couldn't. It was so funny. It's also just so well constructed, that number.

[48:30] Nikki Snelson: And there is some truth to it, because my husband who has an impeccable gaydar, he really does. But he goes to Europe and all of his fuses cross and he has no idea what's going on. Like, why are they holding hands? You know what I mean? And like, that's why we love Europe. So congratulations to you.

[48:48] Nikki Snelson: Yeah, yeah, go Europe. So. So through the process of this whole case, Elle becomes the lead lawyer. And it's unfortunately due to a lot of trauma because the evil Professor Callahan sexually harasses her. And the way that this is handled, both in the movie, but then just expertly in the musical as well, is so smart. A couple of things I want to point out. Callahan isn't dumb. Like his harassment would be difficult to prosecute. He's clearly a lawyer. It would be like he said, she said, you know, there is no like physical harm or anything like that. It's manipulation. It's harassment in almost the most devious sort of way.

[49:36] Nikki Snelson: Well, he's grooming her a little bit. He makes sure they're alone in the room. There's a lot of things. Yeah. Yes, you're totally right. And then Elle doesn't report him because I think like so many victims, she's like, what's the point? This is a man in power. Who am I to even have people believe me and my story? But then because of this little community of people that love her, Brooke fires him, you know, because she doesn't want this sleazeball and hires Elle who can technically practice law as long as Emmett's by her side and they have their, you know, relationship as well. I mean, this all feels just fresh as a daisy.

[50:19] Nikki Snelson: Absolutely. It's so funny because we opened in 2007. It was prior to the Me Too movement, but it was happening all the time. It was happening. It still happens all the time, but particularly men in power getting away with this kind of thing. Having directed it several times, we've had to really explore the concept that this is probably not the first time that he's done this, that he is a master at doing this and he finds himself in situations where he can do this and because he is powerful, he has gotten away with it. I do think in the kind of epilogue that Paulette does at the end, I do think it's implied that Elle must have reported him because he ends up having a messy divorce. He runs for governor.

You know, it's kind of implied that everybody knew what had happened in the end, which is great, but it's interesting because it felt so 2007. The show felt so 2007 when it came out with things like, she's all that, no side of fries, that kind of comment, that kind of language.

[51:31] Nikki Snelson: We always wondered how it would age and what the gravitas would be and if anything, it has gotten more and more important as the years have gone by and here we are, you know, in almost 2027 and the Cornell 7 thing is happening and it is just so wonderful though now all these years later to see a woman holding their power and removing themselves from a situation and reporting the behavior and then them losing things because of it because as they should, that's why some of this Cornell 7 stuff is so upsetting because men in power for years and years and years just got away with it. You know, if you look at the whole Harvey Weinstein thing, that was going on for decades and it's beautiful to watch a show that you go in thinking is this big, fluffy, fun, blonde, pink show and now you see how much gravitas there is and how much it is about knowing who you are and empowering yourself and having a community of people to help you and it's really beautiful.

[52:44] Nikki Snelson: And I don't mean to go down the avenue of it's impossible to be a woman, but it does feel impossible to be a woman and it's really cool to have a character like Elle pointed out in this way in the same way that maybe like the Barbie movie did it where she looks perfect, but then you're judged for not being smart enough, but you're sexy enough to be harassed. Where's the positive?

[53:10] Nikki Snelson: Well, that's the thing. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you know, women have an impossible situation. If you're a mother, but you have a job, then are you neglecting your child or are you neglecting your job or you're, you know, are you too pretty to be taken seriously? Are you not pretty enough to live up to standards? Are you aging? Are you, there's so many things that go on and I find that especially difficult and I, you know, this is not a tiny violin moment, but even still, I'm one of the only female director choreographers I know and I'm constantly fighting an uphill battle to break into a world that is largely populated by men, especially as a director. I feel less so as a choreographer, but being the fact that I do both, it's tricky. I will look at rosters for a lot of regional theaters and they'll have maybe one woman on or none, to be honest. So it's always a thing.

[54:13] Nikki Snelson: Graciela Danielle and Kathleen Marshall.

[54:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right, and Graciela Danielle directed my first Broadway show. So that was kind of, yeah, she directed "Annie Get Your Gun."

[54:22] Nikki Snelson: Of course.

[54:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It was really amazing.

[54:24] Nikki Snelson: Can I tell you that I saw that revival and her little thing with the hats during—

[54:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh yeah. "No Business Like Show Business."

[54:32] Nikki Snelson: The way that I stole that immediately and put it into every high school thing that I created. I put it in things still to this day.

[54:38] Nikki Snelson: So cute. She was also really wonderful to have as like one of my first big directors because I also had Mercedes Ellington involved in my life. So to see these women that not only are brilliant and—

[54:53] Nikki Snelson: But also lead with a very womanly kind of love to the way she took care of myself and my co-star. We were playing the Juvenile and the Ingenue and our parts were getting just slashed to smithereens because we were the secondary characters in a Bernadette Peters musical. She was so kind and so wonderful and I think was a huge wonderful example for me. Yeah, we always laugh though because on closing night, I get emotional and I'm so sad I'm never going to see my show again and it's all dramatic and then I think, I bet Julie Tamor is not out here behaving like this. So, oh well. Well, you know what? It takes a village.

[55:40] Nikki Snelson: There you go. There you go. Hilarious. The big breakthrough is, of course, Elle knowing the ins and outs of perms. We find out that the killer of Brooke's husband is actually his daughter who's mad that he chose someone so young and in the script, and I had forgotten this, Enid, one of the Harvard people, actually gets a perm and then goes into a shower. Did that actually happen on stage? I completely forgot.

[56:06] Nikki Snelson: Yeah, so she sends Paulette and Enid off for Paulette to give her a perm and then she comes back on and Natalie Joy Johnson and now my wonderful actress, Avery at OSHA is doing it. They have, Natalie had a wig on a wig on a wig. So, she had the wig she wore as Enid and then she had the wet version and then she had the chutney version because she gets in the shower, she takes off the chutney wig and she has to come out with wet hair. So, because we don't have the budget for it right now at OSHA, our poor actress has to go in, take off the chutney wig and spray her actual hair down to come out. I don't know what she does about a microphone, God bless. But yeah, it was funny because there were a couple times on Broadway where Natalie's chutney wig would get stuck on and we'd all be standing there waiting while the shower ran. It would be like hanging off her head. It was hysterical. But yeah, that all had to happen on stage within 20 seconds.

[57:08] Nikki Snelson: But I guess it makes sense, right? Because you can't just have somebody talk about the most important part of the show. You need the visual as well. Well, that's what's so great. We do a lot of showing, not telling. Exposition to me is like, what's the point? So, we do a lot of showing, not telling in Legally Blonde. But that scene is also written so tight in that poor Elle has to go, why would you blah, blah, blah, boom, why would you blah, blah, blah, boom, why would you blah, blah, blah, blah. And then she has to get the words, ammonium thiglocolate, I can't even say it right now, out in the tiniest amount of time. And every time that poor actress is playing Elle, I'm like, knock on wood right now. You got this girl. Relax the tongue, relax the tongue.

[57:49] Nikki Snelson: That's amazing. Now, throughout this are amazing songs that, of course, we've skipped over. There's honestly so much plot to this show that it's hard to go through everything, including Emmett's makeover. There are a couple of songs that I do want to ask you about, So Much Better, being the first one. It's the end of the first act. It's the defying gravity moment. I've heard Lawrence O'Keefe say that he's often called Larry O'Keefe change because of So Much Better. I love it. That's hilarious. I've never heard that. That's so fun. Talk to me about this number. Was it always in there? And the way that Laura Bell did it, it was not a park and bark, man. She was jumping up and down and running back and forth.

[58:38] Nikki Snelson: Well, she's already run a marathon by the time we get to that. I mean, her act one, she is either in a quick change or on the stage, pretty much the entire number. And she has already done a scene right before that that gives her no time to get a sip of water or anything before having to do this giant number. It's intense. It's always intense for the girl playing the role, but I think they just lock in because it is such an amazing girl power moment when she sees her name on that list, and she gets to kind of shame Warner in front of all those people and stand center stage and live her best life. They play with the key of it a lot. Because I think at one point, it was in some crazy, she was going to have to- It was stratospheric.

It was going to be like Defying Gravity. But Elphaba hasn't had to do all this comedy and dancing. So, wherever it landed is perfect. I'm always, always amazed at the beasts that play El. I did it at the Kansas City Starlight, and we had nine days of rehearsal, and Carrie St. Louis, who's about to be Dolly, was El. And so, you don't even get to build up your stamina when you're rehearsing that quick, right?

[59:50] Nikki Snelson: Right. That's a good point. And she would come out there and blow the roof off the joint every day, every night. Well, there is no roof. It's Starlight. But-

[59:57] Nikki Snelson: But you can- You know what I mean.

[1:00:03] Nikki Snelson: That's not the only stratospheric thing though, because the Legally Blonde remix with Kate Shindell, when did that happen?

[1:00:13] Nikki Snelson: Very late. Very late in the process. I think that Larry and El kind of realized, we have this Ferrari that we're not driving, with Kate Shindell's voice, doing what it can do, and we're not using it. So, it was always going to be that Kate was going to be the one, Vivian was going to be the one to make her say. But that last note was not written in there. It was me, Natalie Joy Johnson, and Kate Shindell standing around the piano. And Kate went, what about, and she just sang that note. And they were like, yeah, yeah, that. Okay. And then I think about two months into the run, she was like, why on earth did I suggest that I sing that Q above high Q? But yeah.

[1:01:05] Nikki Snelson: The beginning of the song, she's already skrilting her face off when she says, you've got the best freaking shoes. All those notes are already crazy. And then we added in that big high note at the end. And it's also in the curtain call. So, she waits two and a half hours and then has to do all of her heavy lifting at the very end.

[1:01:24] Jeff Parsons: Oh, that's such a good point. Well, look, it's such a fun show. I do think that we leave the theater on Cloud Nine, which is my favorite type of theater. But for a show that makes you feel as good as you do, it's fascinating that it spawned a reality show that feels completely toxic.

[1:01:48] Nikki Snelson: 100%. Absolutely.

[1:01:50] Jeff Parsons: Speaking of things that didn't age well, you look back on that thing. And I mean, MTV should receive fruit baskets from therapists all over New York City, because I know those girls had to go through so much rehabilitation after being involved with that. Were you on it?

[1:02:09] Nikki Snelson: There was an episode where they had to do a scene with me, and I was meant to drop a line to see how they would handle it. I'm not sure Emma Zaks is still speaking to me, but it was wild to see how they all handled it. It was really fun to see Lena Hall, now Tony winner, Lena Hall from Hedwig. She and I were contemporaries. We were up against each other for Demeter in Cats when she was Selena Carvajal. And it was funny to see how she handled it, because she had been around for years and years and years, and how other people handled it. There were some people that were brand new to the city. But the whole fact that they did it, and I know it's become this campy thing that people watch now, and they think it's so fun.

But the whole fact that they did it when I think Laura Bell maybe would have stayed for the whole run. I don't know what she had going on. Or there were also just tons of people in New York City that were training, training, training, putting in the work, primed and ready for that kind of a role. And then we went to do this reality show and threw it to a whole new, and there are some incredible people that came out of that. Rachel Potter, Autumn, there's tons of people that are working nonstop. But to put those girls through that, and for there not to be a proper track to get to that part, was really intense. And not all the cast members wanted to be a part of it, because they thought it wasn't very nice-spirited.

Or now that I'm saying that out loud, if the whole point of Legally Blonde is this kind-spirited person becoming who they are, and becoming their potential, was that the best way to find Elle? I don't know. It was weird. It was a weird thing.

[1:04:10] Jeff Parsons: It was a weird time, though. I remember when I first moved to LA, kind of around that time, I did an episode of The Tyra Banks Show.

[1:04:19] Nikki Snelson: Okay, amazing. Amazing.

[1:04:22] Jeff Parsons: And they had us. I was supposed to be a crazy fan at The Grove in LA, who was going to stop and harass this girl who had written into Tyra and said that she wanted to be treated like a star. And so then Tyra was going to be like, well, this is what it's like to be a star. Anyway, and it was this whole improv thing in The Grove. The pep talk that those producers gave us is something reserved for cult leaders, okay?

[1:04:54] Nikki Snelson: Oh, wow.

[1:04:54] Jeff Parsons: Like, it was intense. And it makes for a good story. But like, sorry, Luna. That was her name, I remember. Apologies, Luna, that we assaulted you in the middle of The Grove.

[1:05:07] Nikki Snelson: Oh, my God.

[1:05:09] Jeff Parsons: It was a weird time. It was a very weird time.

[1:05:12] Nikki Snelson: Right before Legally Blonde went to Broadway, I was up for Val and the Chorus Line, and it's heavily documented in Every Little Step.

[1:05:22] Jeff Parsons: Oh, in Every Little Step, wow.

[1:05:24] Nikki Snelson: So I had had that experience, too, where, thank God, whoever was in the editing room seemed to like me, and I came off as not a crazy lunatic. But there was a lot of that going on. Cameras following people around, throwing people off their axis, essentially, to see what would happen.

[1:05:37] Jeff Parsons: To see what would happen.

[1:05:46] Nikki Snelson: Yeah, yeah. So it was wild. But I'm thrilled that all of those girls have gone on to have such success.

[1:05:53] Nikki Snelson: And honestly came through it like Elle, you know?

[1:05:56] Jeff Parsons: Yeah, 100%. And I think they're all friends now. And then I had left the show by the time Laura Bell left the show. So I had left to go do A Chorus Line, so I wasn't a part of the Bailey Hanks moment.

[1:06:12] Nikki Snelson: Gotcha. Because then you were doing Cassie, right?

[1:06:15] Nikki Snelson: Yeah.

[1:06:16] Jeff Parsons: That's so cool. My gosh.

[1:06:18] Nikki Snelson: It was crazy.

[1:06:19] Nikki Snelson: You love your marathon numbers. There was a moment where I was rehearsing for Cassie during the day and doing Legally Blonde at night. I thought I was going to die. Yeah, it was rough.

[1:06:29] Jeff Parsons: That's a- yeah, seriously, pass out.

[1:06:32] Jeff Parsons: Nikki Snelson, thank you so much for doing this with me. I've had so much fun. You've been so generous and open with these stories and we're all better for it. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[1:06:44] Nikki Snelson: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

[1:06:48] Jeff Parsons: As always, if you have recommendations for shows you'd like us to cover on a musical theatre podcast, you can always email me at amusicalpodcasts at gmail.com. We would love to see you over at Patreon! That's patreon.com slash amusicalpodcast where you will receive bonus episodes. There was an essay that came out today with this one, as well as contests and giveaways. We'd love to see you there. Also, join us on our social media accounts. Share that content so that our episodes can reach as many people as possible. If you're feeling generous, you can head over to our TeePublic store where our designs can be put on all manner of products and the profits we receive from those purchases go to Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS.

More than anything, so grateful that you are here and part of this wonderful podcasting community. Hey, Nikki Snelson, thank you again for being here. You're so wonderful. Can you please let us know how we follow you and go ahead and plug anything that you want to.

[1:07:48] Nikki Snelson: Yes, I am on Instagram at Nikki Snelson, and you can find me on NikkiSnellson.com or YouTube.

[1:08:01] Jeff Parsons: Amazing. Nikki, thank you again for this. Everybody out there, thank you for listening and remember, what you got is right in front of you, in front of you. What does not kill us makes us hotter.