XAVIER J. BUSH’S LEGALLY BLONDE VISION BRINGS SOME NEEDED DIVERSITY INTO A CLASSIC
by andrew j stillman
When you’re given an opportunity to direct your favorite musical, you don’t say no. Director and choreographer Xavier J. Bush knows all about this feeling as he takes on his second run of Legally Blonde at San Diego Musical Theatre (SDMT), although this will be his first time leading it at his home stage.
“Legally Blonde has literally been my favorite show since I was in eighth grade,” Bush told The RAGE Monthly. “I went to a big show choir concert at my high school, and they did the opening number and I was like, ‘What is that?’ The pink, the fun, the glitz of it all, and that’s where it became my favorite musical.”
Bush started directing at age 20, and he returned to his high school to direct its music program, which landed him his first opportunity to take on Legally Blonde.
“The choir teacher suggested Legally Blonde and I was like, ‘OK, yes, that’s my favorite show, but if we’re going to do it, it needs to be good. We need to do it right.’”
Now that he’s taking on the show on a professional stage, his former high school actors have reached out to congratulate him and share memories of their time together doing this show.
When it came to taking it on with SDMT, Bush said he always let them know he was “their person” if they ever decided to do the show here. “It’s really special to be able to come back to it professionally and at a theatre that I call home and I’m so connected and close to and have worked with so many times. Our Elle Woods (Johnisa Breault) was my dance captain for the other two shows that I choreographed at SDMT. To be able to work together in this light and still understand how each other works is really special,” he said.
Bush wasn’t always tied to SDMT and has pursued his passion for musical theatre ever since he was a boy in Detroit, Michigan. He started out singing at age 5 before he joined church musicals and partook in little shows along with the choir, which is where he learned how to dance. His interest took him to New York City, where he went to school for musical theatre and performing.
These days, Bush said he still directs and choreographs, though “it does bounce around depending on the project and depending on who hires me. I did start being on the creative side of things luckily from a very early age, and I was given those opportunities to take those leadership positions.”
Although he has played around with both directing and choreographing different shows, this will be the first time he has done it at the same time on a professional level.
“I completely recognize that most people don’t get their dream show at their dream place,” Bush said, “so that’s really cool. What I love about it, too, is that the high school production I did last time, it was good. It was great. It was also a high school production. So being able now to have the resources, the full creative team, all the different designers and everything to be able to collaborate with and make the images in my head really, really come to life just makes me so lucky and blessed. I’m also able to elevate the work we’re doing choreographically and acting wise and vocally to be on a professional level.”
Bush explains what audiences can expect from the upcoming show: “A challenge and also goal with this production is giving audiences those iconic moments that we all know and love from the movie and from the original Broadway production with Laura Bell Bundy, but also finding new ways to keep it fresh and new. This is fun and fresh, and we’re setting it in 2024.”
Outside of the present-day setting, another thing Bush was intentional on during casting was to make sure that they represented a diverse group of people.
“Our Elle Woods is Asian,” he said. “I don’t want to say it’s ‘different,’ but it’s different than what you expect from Reese Witherspoon, and we really tried to include body diversity in all different characters. We were really intentional on that in casing, and one of the biggest messages of the show is being true to who you are, no matter what you look like. We really wanted that message to ring true for everyone.”
Legally Blonde will be staged at San Diego Musical Theatre from Friday, May 3 through Sunday, June 2. sdmt.org/shows/legally-blonde
Andrew J. Stillman is a writer of fantasy stories and freelance content. In his spare time, he makes YouTube videos and explores the world on his travel blog at lifeinanotherworld.com. Follow him @andrewjstillman on all the things.