Regent's Park Open Air Theatre

Finally, though, let's talk about the strongest aspect of this production, which is its company.

Now, when I saw the workshop version of this, I had my misgivings about the production itself, but I was really hoping that it would get staged because of the star turn at its center from Liv Andrusie, who has been this hugely exciting rising star for some time now, from Ride the Musical, from Fiddler on the Roof at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.

And though she has led shows already and been nominated for an Olivier Award, I thought that more people needed to see this performance to appreciate where she has risen to at this stage in her career.

And she offers the production's most compelling work as Bertrand.

We saw this when it was revived in a...

In various ways, unconventional production directed by Lucy Moss a couple of summers ago at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, with newly diverse casting in abstract design and human dogs.

But even beyond that, the minutiae of Legally Blonde gets really discussed on multiple occasions within the last year.

There has been a lot of online discourse about various aspects of Legally Blonde, some of it very recently, and I want to address all of that in one fell swoop.

The first time I saw the original ending to the play on stage, so I went, I've seen this on stage a couple of times.

I've seen it at the Menier Chocolate Factory, and I saw it, uh, at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park with a drag queen in that ca- instance playing Audrey II, which-

Oh, okay

... worked brilliantly.

It is where I have taught, learnt and met many of the people with whom I consistently collaborate today.

I am therefore delighted to have been offered an honorary doctorate." Beyond his work at the Citizens Theatre, Dominic has directed productions for the National Theatre of Scotland, Royal Lyceum Theatre, the Bristol Old Vic, as well as for Scottish Opera, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.

He has also served as artistic director of the Trav- Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh and as joint artistic director of Dundee Rep.

Professor Jeffrey Sharkey, Principal of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, praised Dominic's contribution to the arts.

But it was the recording of the original Broadway production that really alerted me to the depth and cleverness of musical theatre and the sheer range of tonal possibilities within one show.

It was then my experience of going to see a revival in London at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in 2010 or 2011 that made me aware of all of the creative possibilities of revivals and the extent to which one production of a show could deviate so much from another.

With that, a fascination was sparked within me like a bean planted in the ground, and Mickey Joe Theatre was born, essentially, so I owe an awful lot to Into the Woods.

And including that production at Regent's Park, I have seen three different stagings of Into the Woods, and I have thought that none of them were perfect.

There is strain in their relationship for sure and they go on something of a journey, but I believed in this relationship and I think that's really important and that's something that I may have felt was lacking a little previously as well.

Here's another moment in the woods that I enjoyed, and that was once more getting to experience the woods themselves, crafted as they have been magnificently by Tom Scutt.

I don't pretend to know the first thing about how you put such realistic looking trees on stage, but it does feel like the greatest actual woods that any production of Into the Woods I've seen has ever had, including Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, where there were literal trees.

And it's a feat of staging, design and lighting from Aideen Malone, which has so many gorgeous moments throughout the production that the woods feel so versatile and adaptable and we offer such a sense of shifting location, and it doesn't feel static.

Um, for those who don't know, and I would be surprised if you didn't, but hey, you never know, Lucy, along with Toby Marlow, is best known for writing Six, for which she won a Tony for Best Score, a nomination for a Tony for Best Direction, and five additional Olivier nominations for the show.

She also co-wrote Why Am I So Single? with Marlow, directed Veduttti the Musical online, and Legally Blonde at Regent's Park, and was featured on Times 100 List 2022.

Thank you so much.

So yeah, thanks so much for coming out today.

Um, the, uh, the, the two that I could think of, um, were, the reason, one was a, one was, um, I don't know if I want to say it.

I'm just gonna say it.

Uh, one was like a sort of a modern interpretation of Carmen that, um, Toby and I were supposed to be writing for Regent's Park Theatre and they, I think they paid us a small advance to write something and we spent four months in a room, like Monday to Saturday, 10:00 till 6:00 trying to write it, and at the end of it we had two songs and like thousands and thousands of pages of like notes.

Uh, and basically, and then another, another thing was an animated film that we were supposed to be writing.

It's got romance, it's got drama, it's...

Yeah, uh, for sure, "West Side Story." I just saw, um, "Cats" at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.

Now, this one's a bit left field.

It's a bit, um, outside the box, but the, the-

Um, 1908 at, at Boston Lend a Hand Dramatic Club, 1916, Old Vic, 1931, Sadler's Wells Theater.

1932 is the first staging of Twelfth Night at the Open Air Theatre in London, as well as the Open Air Theatre in Ashland, Oregon.

We'll come back to the Regent's Open Air in London, um, in, in just a second here.

1940, there's a Twelfth Night production on Broadway, which had a very long run for Broadway at the time, with Helen Hayes as Viola.

He's got quite a naughty sense of humour.

Oh, that's the Regent's Park Theatre, by the way, in case you're wondering.

That sounds like it's the show, whatever it is.

What if they start playing every kind of people? He's lovely and he's brilliant.