NEW Heights High School Theatre Collaborative will present Legally Blonde The Musical at the Ashwaubenon Performing Arts Center with four performances next week
“It’s an adaptation of the movie as well as the book that came before it that tells the story of Elle Woods going to law school, trying to get her man back, and along the way discovering that there are bigger and better things in life for her,” said Kirt Graves, the show’s director.

“It’s really a show about not only female empowerment, but also defying expectations and not listening to people when they tell you who they think you should be.”

Nearly 100 students from high schools throughout Northeast Wisconsin auditioned for roles in the show, with 45 making the cast and more in the pit and tech crew.

“The high level of interest from youth throughout the region exemplifies the significant student desire to practice and advance their performing arts skills before returning to school in the fall,” said Kate Williams, executive director of the Ashwaubenon Performing Arts Center.

Altogether, roughly 20 high schools are represented in the show.

“What’s been really interesting and fun to watch is seeing them come together and bring their own experiences from their different schools and the ways that they’ve been directed there… Part of our mission is to bring these kids all together to get experience with a different creative staff than they’re used to back at their own schools,” said Brent Brayko, the show’s producer. “Some of these kids think they may want to do this in college and may want to go beyond, so to give them experience with different directors, that’s really our goal… Then the kids can take what they learn and how they grow back to their own schools.”

With auditions taking place at the end of May, the cast and creative team alike have dedicated their summer to putting on this show.

“They decided to tackle this huge, ambitious show and they showed up and they put in the work…” Graves said. “They have been undaunted throughout this whole process… They’ve just shown up and put in the work and been so positive and so good to each other throughout this whole process… What I’ll be most proud of is just the fact that they did it.

They came together with this attitude of, ‘Let’s put on a show.’ And despite a lot of odds working against us, it’s going to work.”

“These kids are really serious and really passionate about theater and love performing so they’ve been very responsive and responsible,” Brayko said. “I hope [audiences] see the passion of the kids to want to perform and to be able to perform in a high caliber place like this.”

Continuing a tradition

NEW Heights is made up of a group of dedicated arts advocates in Northeast Wisconsin to ensure that high school students continue to have access to a high-quality summer musical experience in the region.

“Back [in March], I decided to call a Zoom meeting of about 12 people to talk about how we could continue this tradition of a show for area high school performers, because Studio 12 wasn’t going to be able to continue this year,” Brayko said. “Next Stage did it for over a decade and then Studio 12 and we just couldn’t let this go. We got a lot of emails and requests from kids, so we decided to see if we could just continue this. One thing led to another and things went pretty quickly… We learned that to put on a production of this nature is taking a big leap of faith, but we felt like it was the right thing to do.”

“Anybody who has come to see any of the shows that have been like this — the ones that our predecessors have done where we gather kids from all over the county and they come together to put on a show — they know that this is something special,” Graves said.

Performances of Legally Blonde the Musical will take place on Friday, Aug. 7, at 7 p.m.; Saturday, Aug. 8, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.; and Sunday, Aug. 9 at 2 p.m.

More information about NEW Heights and the upcoming production of Legally Blonde the Musical can be found at newheightsonstage.org.