Writing Team Set for Legally Blonde Musical

A writing team is now set to bring Legally Blonde to life on the Broadway stage, a production spokesperson confirmed to Broadway.com. The book of the upcoming musical, based on the hit 2001 MGM film and Amanda Brown's original novel, will be written by screenwriter Heather Hach, with music and lyrics by the husband-and-wife team of Larry O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin. As previously reported, Jerry Mitchell will make his Broadway debut as a director/
choreographer with the musical comedy.

Legally Blonde tells the story of Elle Woods, Bel Air's favorite pink-clad blonde, and her equally stylish Chihuahua, Bruiser. After Elle's boyfriend dumps her at graduation, she gets accepted into Harvard Law School to win him back, then discovers she has far more legal savvy than she ever imagined.

Hach is a screenwriter best known for co-writing the hit 2003 remake of Freaky Friday. She began her career as a journalist, first as a writer for the Denver bureau of The New York Times and then as editor of InLine: The Skate Magazine. While living in Denver, Hach was also a part of the Impulse Theater improvisational comedy group. She moved to Los Angeles in 1999 and won the Disney Fellowship for Screenwriting prior to landing Freaky Friday, her only produced screenplay. She is currently writing the films The Governor's Wife and an adaptation of the novel In the Drink. Legally Blonde will be her first theatrical project.

O'Keefe and Benjamin have been collaborating on shows since their days at Harvard University. Their professional collaborations include The Mice which was presented as part of a trio of one-acts entitled 3hree and the TheatreworksUSA musical Sarah, Plain and Tall. They are currently at work on a new TheatreworksUSA tuner, Cam Jansen, and Huzzah!, a musical about love, jealousy and violence at a Renaissance Faire.

O'Keefe is best known for writing the music and lyrics for Bat Boy, the acclaimed off-Broadway musical that will have its U.K. premiere this summer. As a member of L.A.'s Actors' Gang, he wrote music and lyrics for the company's mountings of Molière's Imaginary Invalid for which he won an Ovation Award and the musical Euphoria which picked up L.A. Weekly Awards Ovation Awards for Musical of the Year and for his music. He has also received a Jonathan Larson Award for his work.

Benjamin is a 2003 Kleban Award recipient and, like O'Keefe, has received a Jonathan Larson Award. She has also served as a staff writer of the television series Unhappily Ever After, authored a corporate bond trading procedures manual and wrote The Explorer's Club, which played at Los Angeles' Tamarind Theater in 2002.

Legally Blonde will be produced on Broadway by Hal Luftig, Fox Theatricals and Dori Berinstein in association with MGM on Stage. It is expected to open during the 2005-2006 season.