Heather Hach

Hometown: Ames, Iowa, which Hach credits for her musical tendencies: "So many musicals are set in Iowa. It's like the place to cast your Americana."

Currently: Making her Broadway book writing debut to the tune of a Tony nomination for Legally Blonde.

Liar, Liar! "From the minute I existed, I was telling stories," Hach declares with a mischievous tone. "I was a huge liar, and not like 'I have a pony,' more like 'That's not my real father!'" She even convinced her best childhood friend that her parents were divorced, which he believed "for about a year." Nonetheless, friends and family nurtured Hach's creative tendencies, cheering on shows she'd put on in the backyard. "I was really lucky I had people who encouraged me," she says now, "'cause frankly, other kids who did that would be medicated."

Girl Power: Hach used her storytelling skills to triumph in high school speech and debate. "I used to show up for debates as this little sophomore against senior boys," she recalls. "They'd think I was this cream puff, and then I'd beat them!" In senior year, she tried her hand at stand-up and improv comedy, then entered the University of Colorado. "I didn't think dramatic writing was a viable career option at the time, so I got a journalism degree," she explains. "I worked at the New York Times' Denver bureau, and on weekends, I performed improv. I thought that was an ideal life. I was comfortable, but creative."

So Much Better: A traumatic divorce threatened to upend Hach's seemingly idyllic life in the late '90s. But much like Elle Woods, she was determined to bounce back. "It was a great opportunity to ask myself, 'What do I want to do?'" she reflects. "If I couldn't have a good personal life, I'd have a great professional life—or at least try!" Relocating to L.A., Hach pounded the pavement as a budding screenwriter. Within a year, she received a Disney Writing Fellowship, which, in turn, led to her first film assignment: the hit 2003 remake of Freaky Friday, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. "I was so naive," she remembers. "It came out on a Wednesday and made $6 million, and I was like, 'Is that bad?' They said, 'A Wednesday-opening family movie making $6 million? That's great.' It was so much fun!"

Going Blonde: Hach's work caught the attention of director Jerry Mitchell, who brought her on to Blonde in 2003. Four years later, she's positively smitten by the theater world. "I've found the people much more human than in film," she says wryly. "It's so rewarding, because my voice matters. I love the freedom of screenwriting, and yeah, the money's great—but you're alone in your room writing. Blonde has forever changed me. I'm a little terrified, frankly, to go off alone again and write in the dark." Now re-married and living in L.A. with a baby girl, Hach foresees a bi-coastal life, already brainstorming future projects for fellow Tony nominee Laura Bell Bundy. "I've fallen in love with theater," she says. "I've only been away few weeks and I already miss New York!"

Omigod! In the build-up to the Tony nominations, Hach admits getting hooked on blogs and chat boards. "I got crazy psycho looking up the statistics and the predictions," she confesses. "Of course, you want a Tony nomination. I thought it'd be great if someday at my funeral, they say, 'She got a Tony nomination, dammit!'" Sleepless the night before, Hach got up pre-dawn West Coast time to hear the news live via podcast. "When they said, 'Curtains, Rupert Holmes,' I thought, 'Well, that's curtains for me!' because I had ideas of who it would be. When they did say my name, I started to cry and scream."

Name Game: Hach finds her last name constantly mispronounced, most recently by Jane Krakowski as she announced the Tony nominees. "It's like 'Bach' with an H— you wouldn't pronounce his name 'Batch!'" she says with a laugh. "It's a good Czechoslovakian name." If her recent projects are any indication, it's a name the industry will be hearing again. "It's absurd that my first project, Freaky Friday, made $111 million," a humble Hach says, "and my first Broadway assignment is Legally Blonde and it's not exactly sucking at the box office. This is what I'm supposed to do—it's so right and natural. I'm just lucky I get to do it for a living."

From Page to Stage: Next on Hach's agenda is a film adaptation of fellow Tony nominee Douglas Carter Beane's hit 1997 play, As Bees in Honey Drown, starring the original Elle Woods, Reese Witherspoon. A series of strange events convinced Hach that she couldn't pass it up. "My husband calls me 'Bean,'" she explains, "and I'm related to the Carters; Jimmy Carter's like a cousin of mine. When I was pregnant with [daughter] Harper, we started calling her 'bumble bee,' and then actual bees showed up at the house! It had to be." If this becomes a trend, make sure you pick your projects carefully, Heather! "Yeah," she quips, "Twister the Musical, I'll pass on."