• Mar

  14

  ‘Legally Blonde’ wins three Oliviers

  Filed under: Laura Bell Bundy, Lexington Opera House, Musicals, New York, Theater; Tagged as: Andrew Lloyd Webber, best musical, Elle Woods, Jill Halfpenny, Laura Bell Bundy, Legally Blonde -- The Musical, Lexington Opera House, Love Never Dies, Olivier Awards, Reese Witherspoon, Sheridan Smith, Tony Award
  

  Elle Woods had to go from California to New England to get a law degree, but she had to go all the way to England itself to get some theatrical award love.

  

  Actress Sheridan Smith poses for photographers in the character of Elle Woods at the launch of 'Legally Blonde The Musical', in London. © Associated Press photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth.

  Legally Blonde – The Musical, the show that opened on Broadway in 2007 with Lexington native Laura Bell Bundy in the lead, netted three big prizes in the Olivier Awards, England’s equivalent of the Tonys. It won for best musical, beating out Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest, Love Never Dies, best actress in a musical for star Sheridan Smith and best supporting actress in a musical for Jill Halfpenny – does that sound like a Bond Girl name or what? – who played Elle’s hairdresser gal pal Paulette.

  Of Blonde‘s British reception, Associated Press reporter Jill Lawless wrote, “The story of a California girl who proves her mettle at Harvard Law School – based on the 2001 Reese Witherspoon movie – received lukewarm reviews on Broadway and closed in October 2008 after 595 performances. But London’s often curmudgeonly critics greeted it as a burst of sunshine in the rainy West End when it opened here in January 2010.”

  Bundy was nominated for a Tony Award for best actress in a musical for the Broadway production and the show received six other nominations, though not for best musical, and it didn’t win any Tonys. A national tour of the show comes to the Lexington Opera House April 15-17.

  
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