Nikki Snelson: Whipped Onto Screen

In one of the biggest tests of endurance on Broadway today, you can find Nikki Snelson as Brooke Wyndam whipping a group of orange-clad prisoners into shape night after night at the Palace Theatre in Legally Blonde. 

But if you haven't had the opportunity to break a sweat with this aerobics queen in-person… don't split your hairs! MTV brings the pulse-pumping and perky pink action to you Saturday, October 13 when Legally Blonde The Musical will be broadcast to a nation-wide audience! This is the first time in cable television history that a Broadway musical has been recorded and aired in its entirety.

BroadwayWorld.com's own News Desk Editor, Eugene Lovendusky, grabbed a quick minute with Nikki in-between shows this week, to chat about the up-coming MTV broadcast and walk us through the process of filming the mega-hit musical…

Eugene Lovendusky: Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy two-show Wednesday to chat with BroadwayWorld. Here we go! Saturday is the premiere of Legally Blonde on MTV! You'll be performing when it airs, right? Are you going to TiVo it?

Nikki Snelson: Yes, I'm so excited! Of course I'm going to TiVo it; my whole family's TiVo-ing it! They're in Missouri, so they're probably going to watch it on VHS or Beta… Everyone's super excited. Especially with the bending strike this week, at least we have MTV!

Eugene: What was it like performing for that entirely-pink audience on September 18?

Nikki: The whole time was completely surreal. We usually have Monday and Tuesday off – but we didn't on those days.  They taped us for two days before the big showing.  They taped it twice on Monday and during the day on Tuesday we picked up some things, and then we all got ready for out pink-carpet interviews.  And then we walked out of the front of the Palace Theatre (as if it's not glorious enough in the first-place) to a sea of pink teenagers and twenty-somethings.  People in feathers and sequin and boas… there were these two young people who came running up to me in head-to-toe pink work-out gear and said: "We're whipping it into shape!" So exciting.  We did our little interviews with the Hill girls. And then we went back into the theatre and I had to get my camera… I stuck my head out of the pit and started taking pictures of all the kids. They were out of control! The best audience ever.

Eugene: Were they cued on when to say "ooh" and "ahh"?

Nikki: Not really.  Prior to the show, they did some warm-ups…. "Now act surprised!" But no, they were just – picture the best audience ever, then multiply it by cotton-candy-sweet-tooth-a-thousand! They were just so excited to be there.  We had a blast, but we all got so nervous. Because the more they reacted, the more we felt the pressure to try to be as amazing as they were being.

Eugene: I can imagine it must have been a huge adrenaline kick.  Was your performance, or was the cast's performance any different?

Nikki: You know, Jerry Mitchell told us – after our "gypsy run" (period between out-of-town and opening night) – that we were all shmultzing it up all over the place.  All of our friends were in the audience and he said we had lost track of our show.  This time, however, we've settled into it.  We know what works and what doesn't work.  I'm sure it was a little heightened – kicked up a little notch – but we're all actors and we were aware that there were cameras on us too.  We didn't want to come off as these huge chewing-the-scenery musical theatre actors.  We were all very conscious but we were certainly just living for the audience reaction. 

Eugene: You had mentioned earlier that it was two or three days of filming beforehand.  I can image, just to get good camera angles… Walk us through that a little more.

Nikki: They had a huge crane camera set up in the middle of the theatre, which was wild.  And they had about five regular cameras and a few still-cameras.  But then they had cameras back-stage, interviewing us, asking us about daily regime.  On the day-of, they had the Hills girls backstage, interviewing us off of cue cards (it was comedy).  It's amazing when you get a bunch of musical theatre people in a building with a bunch of cameras… and how you think we're over the top in the first place, and suddenly everyone is "Look at me! Look at me!"

Eugene: How insane!

Nikki: Well also, it's MTV.  Most of us are in our twenties and thirties, so we grew-up with the video generation so we were all psyched.

Eugene: I'll bet.  I saw you originate Brooke Wyndam back in San Francisco… what has this entire out-of-town, to Broadway, to MTV experience been like for you?

Nikki: This is like a reopening for us.  This MTV is a whole other level of audience participation.  They say that with hit TV-shows, something like a hundred times as many people will see a show in one night of television as a Broadway show will have its entire run.  It's really nice to know it's going to be nationally broadcast.  For me, Jerry knew what he was doing with Brooke early-on.  Jerry's a dancer. Jerry's very physical. We were jumping rope every morning from day-one; even back in the workshops.  The number has not changed that much, so it's just been maintaining that my feet and my ankles don't fall off! I've lost all of my toe-nails on one foot because my shoes were too small.  That's really gross. [laughs]  But I haven't missed a show yet.  It's like a rebirth every time we hit a milestone.  When we opened in San Francisco, it was huge and we got great reviews.  Then we started our gypsy-run here and were excited.  Then opening here was a magical magical night.  The reviews were hit and miss – which we expected for this kind of a show.  But when we heard about this MTV thing… they've never done this! No show has gotten to do this before.  And apparently the MTV people came to our producers, not vice-versa.  We didn't get a Tony performance… [laughs] so we get the whole show instead!

Eugene: What does it take to make it through "Whipped Into Shape"?

Nikki: I have the whole first act off, so there are days when I'm really exhausted so I take a nap – or there are days stretch or I'm reading "Harry Potter."  Because Jerry was so adamant about making sure our stamina was up from the very beginning, he'd make us do 600 jumps just to warm-up.  Everyone asks me at the stage door: "How do you do it? How do you sing and jump rope at the same time?" And it's really gotten to be, luckily, in my body.  I probably couldn't run five miles but I can jump a rope and sing at the same time! I don't know what I'm going to do with that skill after Legally Blonde, though! [laughs]

Eugene: Sounds like fun.  And you've got such a treat coming up… I hope you love the MTV broadcast.  Thanks for chatting with BroadwayWorld all about it!

Nikki: Yay! Of course; I'm on BroadwayWorld all the time, checking those message boards Enjoy the show tonight.  Thank you, Eugene!

Legally Blonde was recorded live from the Palace Theatre on September 18, and will make its confirmed MTV television debut on Saturday October 13 at 1PM and Sunday October 14 at 7PM.  More re-air dates and times may be announced.