Rebecca Gayheart is going back to high school, and she is nervous about it.
The actress, who played Julie Freeman in the 1999 teen cult film Jawbreaker, is now starring in Jawbreaker The Musical at Hudson Backstage Theatre in Los Angeles. The show opened Friday and runs through September 20. According to Deadline, Gayheart is making her musical theater debut in the production, and she is not hiding her anxiety about it.
"Well, I'm scared shitless about singing. I'm just going to say that," she told Deadline at the Hudson Theater Coffee Shop during a break from rehearsals. "I'm not a singer, so I have one solo and I'm really nervous about it. But at the same time, I am going to make it entertaining and fun. And if the singing isn't amazing, it won't matter, because the scene will be so much fun."
Gayheart is playing Principal Sherwood, a role that combines two separate characters from the original film. In the 1999 movie, Carol Kane played the mild-mannered school administrator Ms. Sherwood, and Pam Grier played Detective Vera Cruz, the tenacious investigator called in after popular student Liz Purr dies. In the musical, those two characters have been merged into one.
Darren Stein, who wrote and directed the original film and also wrote the book for the musical, explained the choice. "It's so fun to have her playing the Carol Kane role," Stein said. "Actually, in the musical, the Carol Kane role, Ms. Sherwood, and Pam Grier, the detective, are one role together. So, Rebecca, she's the principal, but then she becomes empowered to sort of solve the case. So, it's a really fun arc for that character that wasn't in the movie."
Gayheart described the challenge of combining two characters who could not be more different. "So, it's tricky because they're polar opposites, as you know. Pam Grier and Carol Kane, it doesn't get more different," she said. "So, what I'm trying to do is just really find it for myself, make it my own."
She said the role gives Principal Sherwood an arc that did not exist in the film, including a solo number with choreography by Jay Jackson, known for work on RuPaul's Drag Race.
Gayheart is already thinking beyond the Los Angeles run. She told Deadline she hopes her former co-stars could eventually take over the role if the production moves to London. "I think that the role of Ms. Sherwood — and in any play, you know, no one does a play for the entirety of the run — so what I think would be great is if Julie Benz, Judy Greer and Rose McGowan all play this role at some point when the musical is happening on the West End in London," she said.
Jawbreaker The Musical runs at Hudson Backstage Theatre through September 20.
