Since before winter break, the Theatre Department has been tirelessly working on their adaptation of “Legally Blonde”, a movie as well as Broadway Musical, that starts Feb. 19.

The storyline is set on a young woman who has always been told that she wasn’t smart enough. Her boyfriend leaves for Law School and she follows suit only to find out that she has competition with a smart woman from Harvard.

This won’t spoil the ending for you all, but with the help of Paulette, a hairdresser, Elle Woods proves to herself and everyone else that her hair color and her interests do not define her IQ.

Everyone is always excited for the actual show itself, but the makings of a musical or play is often the most unique and comical part.

A sophomore Bailey Cockerham plays Paulette, Elle’s best friend in the musical and also a hairdresser in love with the mail delivery man. Elle is played by junior Paige Boomer.

Cockerham has been in several musicals, The Sound of Music and  Thoroughly Modern Millie, and is also in the choir. She has worked tirelessly along with around 70 other members of the cast and crew.

Sheridan Barnhart

Due to Mr. Schmidt’s illness, he was unable to conduct the majority of the makings of the musical.

“It was hard at first,” Cockerham said. “Taylor Avazpour (student teacher) and Julie Danielson (music director) all just took charge and half of us had never met them before.”

Now, many months later, everything was ship-shape for the performances. However, the road was not as smooth sailing as the performances.

Sophomore Faith Knapp said one of the girls fell asleep before she was supposed to go on and then when they called ‘line’, but she was too busy napping.

“This is an example of things you don’t want to do at rehearsal,” Knapp said. “But they are funny after they happen.”

Speaking of rehearsals, Cockerham said the cast and crew rehearsed everyday after school until 6 a.m. Sophomore Steven Blaire said he was surprised about the amount of effort they put into it all.

“[Musicals] don’t seem like they would be requiring more effort than a sport team.” Blaire said.

Cockerham spoke about the adaptations made to the play.

“During the Legally Blonde Remix, there was a huge dance sequence,” Cockerham said. “We had to cut that out however for time constraints.” Other than that, there weren’t anymore cuts or additions.

Checking  Twitter the three nights that Legally Blonde was being showed was, ‘amazing’. Freshman Jourdan Dunlap said, “All the tweets and posts about [the musical] made me want to go see it.”

The next time the Blue Valley Southwest Theatre Department starts up another play or musical, the reaction, Knapp hopes, “… will be just as big, if not bigger.”