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TBT: BRING IT ON Enjoys The Trip on Opening Night!
May 17, 2024
Ready? Ok! The Tony-winning musical adaptation of Bring It On officially opened at Broadway's St. James Theatre seven years ago! To celebrate the occasion, we're looking back at the show's opening night with its stars Taylor Louderman, Adrienne Warren, Ariana DeBose, Ryann Redmond, Kate Rockwell, and more! Enjoy the trip by checking out the video!
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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The new musical Bring It On has come to Broadway's St. James Theater
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and I'm here on opening night to celebrate with the company. For years, I had been thinking cheerleading and a musical would work together
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and then only when my agent called and said, they're doing a Bring It On musical, and Andy Blankabiller is directing
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and I loved Andy's work on In The Heights. I'd never met him
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You know, that, I was like, okay, this sounds interesting. And then at the first creative meeting
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after we'd assembled this incredible team of people, just really the nicest people
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the producers said, we are open to doing an original story instead of basing it on any of the movies
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So, you know, that for me opened up this whole world of possibility to do an original musical
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And so many people will come in thinking it's, you know, it's another one of those movie to musicals
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But it's not. It's an original story and one that I think we all care very deeply about
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The project came to me and they said, you know, go do whatever you want with it
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And I said, I want to bring all my friends on board. And so we got all these great people together
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who we were all social friends, even if we had work together. And we just dove in and had a great time
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We decided to say, you know, let's do this from scratch. Let's do our own version of Bring It On
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And that's just where we jumped off from. Yeah, Andy was a full-on Yenta on this project
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He really was like, hey, what if you worked with? Tom and Jeff and Amanda
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I mean, it was a dream team, and it was a room anyone would want to be in
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if they're writing musicals today. And so I was just thrilled to be in the room
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It's really been extraordinary. It's a phenomenal room of artists, and every show finds its way
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And certainly, we came in with certain guidelines, and then those all went away
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and everybody just kind of worked on the same part of the show together. And we really figured it out together
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It was quite a collaboration. At first we divvied it up a little bit. Like, you handle one school, you'll handle the other school
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And, you know, the more we worked, everything just crossed over. Everybody contributed to the other person's music
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And then in the end, it was a melting pot. Everybody was doing everything. And it was a tremendous group to be around
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You know, 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. midnight, one in the morning
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We're all working together, finding brand new stuff together. It's been great
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We sort of hopped onto each other's songs, start first in a more formal way
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and then as we got more comfortable working with each other, and as our goal became to tell the same story we all were much more in the room trying to figure out how to tell the story And it was much more a unified voice rather than Yeah it cliche but it the story of the show
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Together we can create something bigger than ourselves. And, you know, Andy had such a strong vision
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and Jeff had such a strong vision of what the story was, that it became, you know, it really became a team effort, you know
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through every note of the music. Because we went on this tour, and we had no idea how the audiences would react to this
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piece. And obviously I think we did pretty well because we made it here and it's been a two and a half year journey and it's been an amazing hard, hard journey. And we're here and I'm so elated and happy and happy that everyone that was on the tours with us today. It's really, really special
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It's such a relief in some senses because we've been developing and hoping for so long that this would ultimately happen for us. But it's also personally so satisfying because I've been with this piece from the beginning
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from its very first reading, and it's the first time for me of seeing a piece all the way through to the end
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and it is such an incredible sense of accomplishment, and also so miraculous to see what the rest of
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this company has done, and how they've been able to grow, and we've grown together, and what we've all
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learned to do together. It's pretty spectacular what's happened in this 36-member company
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over the last two years, and it is definitely something to be celebrated, and I'm really glad that we
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get to celebrate tonight. And this is just such an incredible opportunity, and Andy has made it such an incredible show
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and all the creatives made such an incredible show for all of us to just, like, live in the show
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and show what we're best at and just create the characters around that
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It's very unconventional to do a 12 city tour and then come into Broadway, but having an entirely young and fresh company, I can't, in retrospect, imagine having done it any other way
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because they've gone from really green and really talented to seasoned professionals
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And what you saw tonight is a reflection of that. I was in college a year ago, and I was a theater student going to see next to normal
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going to see in the Heights from the front row. I won the lottery. I saw Len Manuel. And to be working with them and to be colleagues
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it's just I never, ever could have seen this happening. It's a dream come true
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It's my Broadway debut, along with 30-some-odd other cast members, and it was absolutely surreal
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I've been with the show for two and a half years, so culminating in a Broadway run, I'd say, is pretty freaking cool
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I remember back when I was three, just wear my little tap shoes, and then the moment I saw my first Broadway show
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there's been so much that's gone into getting to this point, and I'm so thankful
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So, so thankful to be here with this amazing cast and creative team. I am so thrilled
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I'm so thrilled. It's my Broadway debut, and I originating in a principal role on Broadway with like Andy Blankinbuehler and Linda Green and Tom Kittler And oh my god this is the team Jeff Whittie Like it so it a dream come true I got to pinch myself literally
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Like, I can't believe that I'm right here in this moment right now. We've worked on this for so long, literally blood, sweat, and tears, and it feels like your baby
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And to do that and to let this be my debut, it's a dream come true
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I couldn't even, I couldn't imagine it. I couldn't write a better story than this for myself. I get to play Campbell, and she is very, very, very
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very passionate about what she does. I was in her shoes, you know, in high school for me as a musical theater kid
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It's what I wanted. And she gets to do, go through this amazing journey and learn so many lessons
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I love her and I am so, so thankful to be where I am right now
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I play Randall, who is totally your anti-love interest in so many ways
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He is just too cool for school. He's so into his music
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He totally does his own thing. has his own vibe, so different from everyone in the rest of the show
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And he notices something in Campbell that's a little different. She walks through the metal detectors, and they go blaring off
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And he sees that she isn't easily knocked over. And when she is challenged by the Queen Bees of her new school, she challenges them right back
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And he kind of takes her under his wing and teaches her the ways of Jackson High School
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and is there for her as she grows up and matures a little bit
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My play girl named Ava Darlington, and I don't want to give too much away, but she has some talents that people don't see coming
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And it's just so satisfying to do so many different sides. And the emotional art is incredible in the show
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I feel like I'm so lucky to be able to show all those colors. You know, when they came to me and said
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We You Helms Project, I said to them, just know, I'm going to choreograph a huge dance show
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and I'm going to just direct the choreography. And so from the very beginning, we knew it was going to move, move, move
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like dancing was never going to stop. And that's where I felt comfortable as a director
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because this is my debut as a director. And so, you know, the cheerleading world
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brings us so many more possibilities of physicality. You know, we joke that it's like 3D dancing now
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because we can fly through the ceiling. And so that's a brand new thing to pull to the table
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and it just gives us so many possibilities. And that's the other great thing about the composing teams
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They make very different choices. So from number to number, we can do so many different kinds of things
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which is great. Being in the room with Alex Lackamore, Emmanuel Miranda, Amanda Green
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and them turning to me asking me for my opinion and just knowing that I have validation in my opinion
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and they understand that and they love that. And also working with Andy Blankinbuehler
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just letting him releasing the reins on me a little bit and letting me live a little bit more
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The creative team and Andy Blankinbueh and Alex Lackamore they just helped me you know not only as a performer but as a person and I really thankful that I had them with me along this journey I also love the stage door and seeing all the little girls because that was me you know a few years ago
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And it's so great to see that I can make a difference and make them feel special just like I hoped the lead of a Broadway show would for me
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I'm not in, it's all happening, but I watch it every night because it's so real, it's so true
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That sounds so sappy. but the creative team came together people who had worked together
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and in The Heights and I listened to It's All Happening the first time and I thought this is what Lynn thought
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Imagine the lights, imagine people, imagine us Like let's build something together
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I just think about in the Heights when I listen to it's all happening And now it's a new show and a new project
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And new kids We're kids And we're doing this with some It's like they're Olympians of musical theater
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Tom Kit and Amanda Green And Lynn and Alex and Andy Jeff Whitty
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these are the Olympians of musical theater, and this is what they created
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when they got together and worked in a room for two and a half years, and I dare people not to be impressed
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Audiences have probably fallen in love with our show because it's what they don't expect. You walk in to bring it on and you think
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oh, it's another musical based off of a film, but this is different
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It has the franchise name, but it's got hard. It's got something that you don't see coming from a mile away
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and Andy Blankhambueller's choreographer or choreography is pure eye can't. It's really fabulous
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Audiences, I feel, will love the show and do love the show because it's stuff they've never seen before on a Broadway stage
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or any stage for that matter. You can go get cheerleading at a cheerleading competition
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You can go get theater on Broadway, and this is combining the best of all worlds
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It's pretty awesome. The characters have heart, they've got soul, and people don't expect that with a cheerleading musical, I think
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They expect to the cheerleading, which is amazing. And then they come and get characters that they can relate to
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which is so awesome, which I love. I think that these characters are kids that you care about, and you want to get to know them
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And I think the music is just so well written, and it's just smart and fresh and exciting
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And I think audiences really respond to that. I really feel in a strange way bring it on is so much about our experience of working on the show
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like what the lead character goes through in relation to her want is what our want is for the show
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And then it goes through all this other stuff. and then she comes out just saying, I want it to be awesome and, like, artistically valid
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And that, I think, is the journey for me of this experience
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We got to go. Get your hands up, whoa. We got to go. Get your hands up home
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We got to go. We got to go. Let's go. Let's go
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It's all happening
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