She, like, ohmagawd, Shelby Meaney has Elle right in the middle of her, like, actual name.
It's just "EL" in Shelby but it's pronounced "Elle" because the "LE" is silent. Because it's French. Beverly Hills French.
There's been nothing silent about Meaney's stellar local career in musical theatre. Her roles in the past couple of years have included Maria in The Sound Of Music and Sally Bowles in Cabaret. Now she pinks up the workload in the production that has been as much an international surprise as a boxoffice smash. She plays the lead character - bubbly bedazzler Elle - in this summer's presentation of Legally Blonde.
Admit it. When you saw Legally Blonde the movie you loved Reese Witherspoon but you never thought it would ever become a musical. And gatecrasher popularity? You really never saw that coming.
Legally Blonde: The Musical has stormed the hottest stages of the theatre world. On Broadway, the box office gross was sometimes
$1 million a week. Between the Drama Desk and Tony awards, it garnered 17 nominations, then won a trio of Laurence Olivier Awards when it conquered London's West End.
For the first time ever, Legally Blonde: The Musical comes to Prince George. It is the latest endeavour by producer/director Judy Russell, with an all-local cast and crew at the Prince George Playhouse.
Meaney was one of the early skeptics. She was in New York in 2007 when Legally Blonde was new to Broadway.
"I thought it sounded like a stupid idea for a play based on a movie, but the more I thought about it, the more I understood what they were doing," Meaney said. "Elle is an exaggerated character, the plot is a cartoony, extreme world, it is a whole pile of improbabilities, and that makes it really, really funny."
Elle seems like a shallow, spoiled brat. On the surface, she is. She gets into Harvard Law School based on her money, her naive attraction to a hunky guy from back home in Beverly Hills, and some wild luck. Then she transforms from a pink duckling, through living life outside her bubble and through actual education, into a (still pink) swan of a lawyer and person.
"A lot of people know the general story from the movie, but what we get to show Prince George is the music, and it is insanely musical," said Meaney, one of the city's most acclaimed theatre singers.
"I believe it holds the record for the most key changes in a musical," Meaney explained. "Sometimes you have to start singing and be in perfect pitch, bam, out of thin air, and a lot of it is in this big, crazy six-part harmony with the chorus, which is really challenging for the singers but really rewarding for the audience. You get amazing entertainment value from the music. It's meaty and it's fun."
Elle hardly ever leaves the stage so that means Meaney is constantly at work from opening line to closing bow. When she does infrequently leave the action it is only to whip through a quick costume change. "I even have to do some quick-changes on-stage. Yeah. This show is a marathon and a sprint at the same time," she said.
As the rehearsal process has moved along, though, she has been able to breathe enough to appreciate the other acting performances going on around her. She is especially pleased to report that local singer-actor Padraig Hogan in the main role of Emmett is one of the delights the audience can expect when they buy a ticket. Hogan has been in past productions (Mary Poppins, Spamalot) but has not held one of the dialogue-heavy roles. He emerged in the Legally Blonde auditions in ways Russell could not ignore.
"I don't think anyone else in P.G. could really do this part except Padraig, because of the vocal challenge of the Emmett part and because of the sensitivity and intuition he has as a person," Meaney said. "It makes him a strong actor, and I'd say audiences are going to be really impressed."
She also says the comical bit-parts played by longtime local theatre performer Matt Russell are going to leave a laugh-ting impression. "I can't tell you any more than that, it'll spoil it, but he's a hidden gem and you won't go wrong if you just come to see him."
A jump-rope number led by local stage vet Laura Heagy is one of her personal favourite moments, because "Laura just rocks it, it is incredibly difficult to do what she does in this number, she's such a star, and I'm sorry but it's one of those songs that will get stuck in your head for a month."
Meaney sidesteps the spotlight hype herself, but she has such a body of work that Prince George already has confidence in her abilities. What people may not know, though, is the content of her closet. "There's not a single article of pink clothing, I defy you to find anything I own that's pink," she said.
With her post-secondary accomplishments at the Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts in Toronto, and her time teaching the performing arts in the Kingdom of Jordan, instructing dance at Encha"nement Studios since the age of 15, and international travel for personal development, there is more than just a lack of pink that sets Meaney apart from ditzy, sheltered Elle. This part took some characterization skills of her own, but she points out that we in the audience shouldn't underestimate the princess of the plot.
"The whole point of this play is to talk about people raising themselves up, and not judging people by initial impressions," Meaney said. "Elle shows us that she's actually not a shallow person and this is not a shallow play. This is really smart humour, even though there is this facade of frat-boy/sorority humour at first, but only as a way of making its bigger points."
Legally Blonde: The Musical runs July 17-28 at the Prince George Playhouse. Tickets are on sale now via the Central Interior Tickets website.
