A High-Heeled Step Up

Former Ensemble Player Takes the Lead in 'Legally Blonde'

Trying to get into Harvard Law School? You'll need a few things: an LSAT score above 170, strong letters of recommendation and a great personal essay among them. Or you could follow the Elle Woods method: Skip the essay altogether and bring the UCLA marching band instead!

That's how the star of "Legally Blonde: The Musical," which opens Tuesday at the Kennedy Center, attempts to convince the school's admissions committee that she's Harvard material.

Fans of the 2001 film starring Reese Witherspoon won't recognize the scene, but it's one of the musical's signature moments.

"You can take things a little further when they involve singing and dancing," says Becky Gulsvig, the 26-year-old actress playing Woods in the touring production. "The key moments of the movie are definitely in the show. It kind of sets itself up to be a musical when you really go back and watch the movie."

The story follows Woods, a fashion-obsessed Delta Nu sorority sister at UCLA, after she is dumped by her uber-ambitious fiance-to-be Warner Huntington III. The only way to win him back, she surmises, is to prove her own ambition, so she packs up all her pink outfits, accessories and her pooch, Bruiser, and follows Warner to law school at Harvard. Various culture shocks ensue, but Woods realizes that it's better to be herself than to conform to a stereotype, and she finds her legal voice about the same time she shows up in court wearing a flashy pink dress.

Woods's journey from UCLA sorority house to the halls of Harvard bear similarities to Gulsvig's path to the lead in a national tour. "I don't wear as many high heels or as much pink [as Woods]. I'm not quite as girly," Gulsvig says. "But I can definitely enjoy that side of her for 2 1/2 hours a day. But what I would say is, the heart of that character, I can definitely relate to."

At 17, Gulsvig moved from Minnesota to New York, attempting to gain traction in a business that, like law school, is flooded with qualified applicants and rejection is the rule.

"I think the thing that helped me was that . . . I didn't know New York was scary," she says. "All of a sudden you realize how many people are trying to do this, just how many times you're going to be rejected. It's a very interesting lifestyle, that's for sure."

But Gulsvig didn't even have to hire a marching band to get her first part: She secured a spot as Wendy in the national tour of "Peter Pan" before moving on to play Amber Von Tussle on Broadway in "Hairspray" in 2004.

In 2006, she earned an ensemble spot in "Legally Blonde," as well as the chance to understudy for the role of Elle.

After a year and a half on Broadway, Gulsvig now has top billing in a production with so many wardrobe changes (15, to be exact) that it often amounts to jogging in high heels.

"I'm responsible for a lot of the zipping, hooking, grabbing this piece, grabbing that piece, doing my neck, doing my shoes . . . that sort of thing," Gulsvig says.

As for how Gulsvig gets away from Elle Woods when she isn't onstage? "I definitely put on my flats."

Legally Blonde: The Musical Kennedy Center Opera House, 2700 F St. NW. 202-467-4600. http://www.kennedy-center.org. Tuesday through Jan. 11. $25-$95.