Photo by Jennifer Moher Photography
On March 16, the Anne Shirley Theatre Company will present their first showing of Legally Blonde: The Musical. Whilst we eagerly await opening night, Arthur had the opportunity to talk to performer Lyndele Gauci about her character, falling in love, and a funny story involving her male cast mates.
I heard there’s been some fancy footwork involved with your performance?
Yeah, a little bit. Really, there’s just one particular number that requires a fair bit amount of footwork, and it was rehearsing that number in the beginning of January that caused me to injure my foot.
You’re really taking one for the cause!
(Laughs). Well, I usually get broken at some point in a production, I just didn’t think it would be this early.
How did you get involved with Legally Blonde?
I heard about the auditions through the director and stage manager, Jessica Lynch and Amy Cummings.
This is Jessica’s fifth year involved with the Anne Shirley Theatre Company (ASTC). I didn’t think I’d ever get to be involved with ASTC, but this is the first year they’ve extended an invitation out to the community to incorporate community talent. It’s a bit of a momentous production because we have a few members of the community now involved with the show for the first time ever.
What character are you playing?
I’m playing Paulette.
What’s she like?
She is the owner of the local hair salon near Harvard (in the play). She’s introduced into the show when Elle needs a change, when she wants to change her looks to win back her man. Paulette is Elle’s voice of reasoning, letting her know that’s not really something she needs to do, and they become fast friends pretty quickly in the show. Paulette is fun, she’s quirky. She’s also very vulnerable and really, really wants to be in love.
I don’t want to say she’s Elle’s guardian angel, but I think that through Elle she develops a sense of confidence within herself and realizes she actually does have the potential to be more brave when it comes to love, much like Elle learns to be brave with love. It’s an ongoing theme in the show, this rediscovering your own identity of who you are.
Are there ways in which you relate to the character?
Um, ridiculously, there’s a crazy amount of similarities between myself and Paulette. I didn’t realize that at first, when I was auditioning for the part. But when I was reading through the book and going through the songs, I thought, “Oh, crap. I’m almost the same person!”
You know, we’re both business owners, we both dream big, we both love the idea of being in love, and falling in love, and we love love. Both of us. And we’re both really vulnerable when it comes to that and letting people see who we really are. We even have similar heritage- similar ancestry- which I think is hilarious.
I’ve heard some of your cast mates have been involved with some funny shenanigans. Something involving waxing?
(Laughs) Well, the ASTC and one of the things we do every year for fundraising is host two open mikes, and there’s a silent auction. One of the auction items was that some of the guys had this crazy idea to get themselves waxed at the auction, and then people could buy them.
Buy the boys?
Yes, buy the boys. The highest bidder wins the boys! They actually brought me in as a facilitator to help with this. It was kind of a secret. We didn’t even tell the cast we were doing this until the day of the auction.
So, we finally got around to doing some of the waxing of the boys. They were ridiculously good sports about it, even the ones who didn’t really want to do it.
What did they get waxed?
Um, chest hair, belly hair. Nothing private! Anyone who’s been waxed knows how painful it can be, and these guys didn’t know what to expect. Their screams of agony were actually pretty funny!
Tickets for the show are available outside of Wenjack Theatre at Trent U and downtown at Carpe Diem and Naked Chocolate. This is definitely one to see. Don’t miss it and go and get your tickets!
