LEGALLY BLONDE Producer Sonia Friedman Developing Musical Adaption of 'Shakespeare in Love'

In a special feature with the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph, powerhouse producer Sonia Friedman, the force behind the West End's Legally Blonde, talks the record-breaking production, feminism and her upcoming ventures.  Included on this impressive list is a January West End transfer of Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem, one of the season's most successful productions that played the Royal Court, and developing a musical adaptation of the blockbuster Shakespeare in Love.  And this after just opening A Little Night Music with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury on Broadway and preparing to open the Liev Schreiber/Scarlett Jonhansson-led A View from the Bridge on Broadway in January.  In fact, Friedman has no fewer than 56 projects on her "to-do list."

So far, Friedman is batting 1000.  It was recently announced that the West End's Legally Blonde broke box office records, taking in £2million in advanced sales.  A pioneer of new producing strategies, she also is instituting the first ever ticket lottery system offering discounted tickets to lucky winners before showtime, and has changed the reviewing policy, as well.  Modeled after the New York system, reviewers for the show will be invited during the final days of previews as opposed to opening night in an effort to get more thought-out commentary. 

Says Friedman of her theatrical choices to the Telegraph: "We are all trying to search for answers as to the mess we're in. The confusion of the wars, why we're doing it, what's going on. I think we're looking to our art to give us some answers. We [theatre] can do that very well, without being didactic or lecturing. It can really make us think about why we are where we are, and we don't have our politicians doing that for us...In times of certainty - call them the 'Thatcher years' - where it was very definite what was going on, whether you agreed with it or not, there was less powerful theatre around. But it's in times of uncertainty that artists rise up and emerge and start to ask the questions. Right now, people haven't got a clue what is going on, I know I don't, and I am certainly looking to writers to try and help me."

On her choice to bring Legally Blonde - a departure from her more serious taste - to U.K. audiences Friedman reveals: "As a woman, I just fell for it and I loved its message. On a more profound level, though it's difficult to talk about this without sounding pretentious, I sort of identified with Elle. It's embarrassing, but I did. Because Elle is a great role model for women. She shows that there's nothing wrong with wearing pretty clothes and lipstick, while still being a strong woman."

In fact, a feminist streak seems, in a way, to have defined this tour de force's career.  Continually battling those who knock her somewhat trendy, feminine attire, Freidman says "I actually get annoyed when I'm described as 'one of the top female producers.' I don't want to be one of the top female producers, I want to be one of the top producers."

To read the Telegraph feature in its entirety, click here.

After getting her start at the National Theatre, Friedman launced Out of Joint theatre company with the Royal Court's former artistic director, Max Stafford-Clark. Then, in 2002, she founded Sonia Friedman Productions, a subsidiary of the Ambassadors Theatre Group - the largest theatre owner in the world. Her recent productions include Shakespeare's Othello, Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, Harold Pinter's No-Man's Land, and The Norman Conquests by Alan Ayckbourn.