AMERICAN THEATRE | A ‘Working Girl’ Who Just Needs to Have Enjoyable (and Break Glass Ceilings)

Cyndi Lauper, that inimitable, brass-lunged icon of Nineteen Eighties music and vogue, is such an apparent alternative to write down the music and lyrics for a brand new stage musical of the quintessential late-’80s social comedy Working Girl (at La Jolla Playhouse Oct. 28-Nov. 30) that it virtually appears too good to be true. In truth, it seems that she was already a part of the sound of the unique movie: Melanie Griffith and Lauper have been social acquaintances on the time, and, on a couple of events, the actor requested the singer to talk to her so she may be taught the accent.

But Lauper isn’t simply placing herself onstage within the new musical, which has a e-book by Theresa Rebeck and path by Christopher Ashley. Writing the Tony-winning rating for 2013’s Kinky Boots taught her, she mentioned, “to write in other people’s voices. Now I can get inside the characters’ heads and really write for them.”

According to Rebeck, her e-book gives “a ferociously comedic” tackle the film’s considerably idealized trendy Cinderella story. But the motion remains to be set within the ’80s, partly, Ashley defined, as a result of the plot’s predominant con—the lead character, a Staten Island secretary, pretends to rule the roost at a Manhattan finance agency whereas her boss is away—couldn’t be pulled off as simply within the extremely related web period.

Rebeck mentioned she’s discovering writing in regards to the power-suited Reagan period surprisingly enjoyable. “Though it’s politically awful,” she mentioned, “the guys in this show are almost celebratory in their unwokeness. It’s pretty amusing, frankly, to wallow in that.”

Lauper doesn’t sound as tickled. “Unfortunately, this story is just as relevant for women as it was when it came out in 1988,” she mentioned. “In fact, since the rollback of Roe v. Wade, times may even be worse for women. There are still glass ceilings. Women still struggle to be treated equally, especially in the workplace.”

Just not in a office the place the author of “She Bop” is on the clock.

Rob Weinert-Kendt (he/him) is editor-in-chief of American Theatre.