Legally Blonde Jr: An Enjoyable Romp at Ja’Duke

Ja’Duke Theater’s presentation of ‘Legally Blonde Jr’ at their Turners Falls theater was an enjoyable way to spend a chilly Saturday afternoon, after the garden got started and the chores were complete. Originally a 2001 MGM movie starring Reese Witherspoon, this production’s blonde star, Elle (Whitney Williams), had the charisma and pipes to do the job.

She had a lot of singing to do, joined by her fellow members of Delta Nu, the UCLA sorority. The scene is set with the title number ‘Omigod You Guys,’ with her sisters peeking out of the windows of their dorm singing up a storm.  The set builders, David Galbraith, Dylan Vinton, and Jaduke co-owner Nick Waynelovich, created five sets, including a corner set featuring a photo mural of a Cambridge city park bench. The realism was effective, and when it came time for the courtroom scene, a full-scale juror’s box and backdrop added realism.

I think the singing in this show was as good as Ja’Duke’s performance of Beetlejuice Jr, performed last April on this stage. Whitney Williams (Elle) played Lydia in that show and had the same strong pipes and presence here that she brought to ‘Beetlejuice Jr.’ which turned out to be one of my favorite Ja’Duke shows ever.

Notable among the cast of young actors was the singing of Pilar, the hairstylist (Matanya Friedman), Elle’s boyfriend Emmett Forrest (Jason Billings) and Williams herself, making the clever lyrics decipherable and keeping the tone up.  The musical’s lyrics, written by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin, are wonderful, especially when the singers, like Emmet, give the audience gems like these:

(sung) I did the Peace Corps overseas
Inoculating refugees
In family clinics that I built myself
From mud and trees

I fought to clean up their lagoons
And save their rare endangered loons
And led a protest march against insensitive cartoons

Most of us know the story of this Uber-popular tale, with incarnations on TV, and on stage, and Elle navigates getting into Harvard and becoming a lawyer in a murder case overnight with aplomb.  It’s interesting to see a group of young women who are so keen on having a man kneel and propose–do women still want this? At one point, Elle bats away another man on one knee, as she realizes he is a cad and she can do better. Happily, Emmet, in his courtroom suit, is happy to jump in, since everyone loves Elle.

I thought about this show and how it would fit in the dog.  Elle’s ubiquitous pup, Bruiser Woods, is usually on the end of a leash or in Elle’s arms. A local pup was trotted across the stage a few times to cover this detail.

Elle faces those uber-qualified fellow students at Harvard with her own version of smart–street smarts, and outfoxes her talented peers in the courtroom with good old common sense. Nobody washes their hair after getting a perm, right?  One of the fun things about these ‘junior’  versions, modified and adapted for younger performers with a shorter run time. Still, the play with two acts and 13 scenes kept up a good pace and never wavered.

Young Zachary Williams stole the show when he came on stage as the leering UPS driver, making a futile pass, and reappeared during the hilarious song, ‘Bend and Snap,’ asking, ‘Did I leave my stylus?’ as Paulette (Elliana DiNardo)  sang about being smitten by his Irish brogue. She no longer wanted to walk away after meeting the compact little dude.

I’m too rockin’ to lock away
All the boys come to gawk away
Droppin’ jaws from a block away
Watchin’ how I walk away

Legally Blonde has become a bit of a juggernaut, with the hit movie, Broadway play, and, in 2026, a new TV show called “Elle,” which will be a prequel to the movie’s plotline.  Ja’Duke often chooses these junior versions of popular hit shows, allowing them to feature mature themes without cursing.

Legally Blonde Jr, April 3-4, 2026, at Ja’Duke Theater in Turners Falls. Directed by Kimberly Williams. Book by Heather Hach, original music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin.