Within the 1988 film “Working Lady,” an assistant secretly stays at her absent boss’ residence, ogles its opulence alongside her finest buddy and tries on a gown with a $6,000 price ticket.
The brand new musical model of the beloved movie re-creates this iconic scene with 9 ladies onstage. They enter the glamorous dwelling with voluminous permed hair, shoulder-padded blazers and white athletic sneakers — the latter for commuting from the outer boroughs into Manhattan — and take turns admiring the tweed Chanel fits, silk Versace robes and classic Hermes scarves. They then quick-change into fabulous metallic robes and, with the assistance of LED panels and lighting cues, the bed room transforms right into a trend runway of scintillating secretaries, singing and dancing in female revelry. And that showstopper gown? It now prices $7,000.
The second epitomizes the method of this adaptation, which begins its world-premiere run Tuesday at La Jolla Playhouse: take probably the most memorable components of the film and switch up the quantity for the stage. The end result: an unabashed celebration of girls, theater and all issues Eighties, led by the quintessential musician who embodies all of it: Cyndi Lauper.
Cyndi Lauper in New York Metropolis in September.
(Larsen&Talbert / For The Instances)
“I would like the viewers to be entertained — laughing, crying, standing up and feeling like they’ll do all of it too,” Lauper stated of the present, already prolonged by Dec. 7. “Not that you can go in your boss’ closet and put on her garments, no! However that thrilling feeling of residing within the metropolis within the ‘80s, being artistic and never backing down.”
A company Cinderella story, the twentieth Century Fox comedy starred Melanie Griffith as Tess, a tenacious secretary at a Wall Avenue brokerage agency who learns that her boss, Katharine, has taken credit score for her enterprise proposal. When a ski accident retains Katharine out of the workplace, Tess poses as her superior to group up with Jack — an funding dealer performed by Harrison Ford — and pitch her concept to the highest brass herself.
Directed by Mike Nichols, “Working Lady” was nominated for six Academy Awards, highlighting the performances of Griffith, Sigourney Weaver because the deliciously cutthroat Katharine, and Joan Cusack as Tess’ finest buddy Cyn. “The tacit recognition of the obstacles that maintain the Cyns and the Tesses again and the shortage of condescension to them within the course and in [the] script makes ‘Working Lady’ one of many warmest movies that Nichols has touched,” praised The Instances’ movie critic Sheila Benson in her overview.
For the reason that “Working Lady” plot is locked into the ‘80s — “Should you tried to move your self off as an government at this time, individuals would Google you and it’d be over!” joked director Christopher Ashley — the musical wholly embraces the period’s aesthetics in its costumes, choreography and, in fact, its rating. “Sonically, there was quite a lot of individuality on the time, with so many new sounds and genres,” recalled Lauper, a born-and-bred New Yorker who briefly labored as an workplace assistant earlier than her profession took off. (Lauper’s agent even inspired her to audition to play Tess within the film.)
With the launch of MTV, “the ‘80s was the primary time we had been watching music,” she continued. “Like, the primary time we noticed Annie Lennox in a boardroom in that swimsuit together with her fist on the desk, trying proper at us and saying, ‘Candy desires are fabricated from this,’ oh my God, it stopped you. It wasn’t simply her androgynous picture or the colour of her hair, which was superior, nevertheless it was additionally the truth that, possibly for the primary time, we had been getting an actual sense of who she was, as a result of music movies had been the place the artists had been in artistic management. Anyway, there was quite a lot of stuff occurring then, and we needed all of it within the present.”
Lauper — whose debut theatrical outing, the 2013 Broadway hit “Kinky Boots,” received six Tony Awards, together with for her authentic rating — has been writing “Working Lady” compositions for a decade. To create songs for the five-piece band that totally represents the number of the period’s music — digital, hip-hop, hair steel and extra — Lauper introduced in her “Time After Time” co-writer Rob Hyman of the Hooters, Cheryl James of the rap group Salt-N-Pepa and Sammy James Jr., who co-wrote the title track for the movie “Faculty of Rock.” (Carly Simon’s Oscar-winning authentic track “Let the River Run” isn’t within the rating.)
Harrison Ford, Melanie Griffith, heart, and Sigourney Weaver, proper, in Mike Nichols’ 1988 comedy drama “Working Lady.”
(twentieth Century Fox)
“Working Lady” is the most recent hit comedy to try the leap from ‘80s film to musical theater, following “9 to five,” “Large,” “Beetlejuice,” “Footloose,” “Tootsie” and “Again to the Future.” Not all of those titles caught the touchdown, critically or commercially.
“I believe some musicals get caught in making an attempt to recapture the precise lightning-in-a-bottle of the film,” stated Ashley. “We’ve the lucky circumstance of Kevin Wade, the movie’s screenwriter, passing this to us and saying, ‘Take what’s helpful and remake what that you must.’”
Joanna “JoJo” Levesque, left, and Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer star within the musical adaptation of the 1988 film “Working Lady,” close to the La Jolla Playhouse.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Instances)
The manufacturing stars Joanna “JoJo” Levesque as Tess, who’s “a bit of rougher across the edges” onstage, stated Levesque. “We lean into her working-class background as a result of we’re actually telling a narrative about class, the haves and the have nots. And on this time that we’re residing in, that’s essential to speak about.” (Sure, Tess nonetheless says her legendary line: “I’ve acquired a head for enterprise and a bod for sin.”)
Likewise, Levesque’s co-star Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer teased that her Katharine has moments of hilariously frantic vitality — a Kritzer character signature. Nonetheless, she stays as statuesque and cruel as Weaver was onscreen. “That is my third movie-musical adaptation,” stated Kritzer, who originated roles within the “Legally Blonde” and “Beetlejuice” musicals. Every time, “it’s about determining learn how to make it totally different however nonetheless giving the viewers what they need.”
Although Tess and Katharine are rivals within the present, seasoned stage actor Kritzer turn into a mentor of types to Levesque, the pop star who entered the theater scene with a 2023 stint in Broadway’s “Moulin Rouge!” and is originating a job for the primary time. In rehearsals, they assist one another incorporate key vocal influences: Lennox, Pat Benatar, Roxette, Joan Jett, Patti Smith, Blondie and Lauper herself. Onstage, the secretaries collectively echo that very same women-helping-women perspective, which could encourage any younger ladies watching.
“There’s a lot magnificence in Cyndi’s lyrics about dreaming massive and utilizing hope as a gasoline,” stated guide author Theresa Rebeck. “Within the ‘80s, corporations saved getting purchased and break up open, however our story celebrates that struggle for alternative and coming collectively to construct one thing new. It was essential then, and it’s essential now.”
So will all of it enchantment to at this time’s working women? “It’s been my expertise that quite a lot of the youngsters just like the ‘80s music,” stated Lauper. “I’m all the time shocked to see what number of children are in my viewers.”
