Preview: Actress finds inspiration in fearlessness of young female characters Elle and Dorothy
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Kelsey Verzotti is legally brunette.
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To play the heroines of Anne of Green Gables and Legally Blonde, Verzotti has had to rely on wigs.
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For the Maritime orphan in Anne of Green Gables, which she played last summer, Verzotti donned the girl's trademark red pigtails, and for Elle Woods, the heroine of Legally Blonde, whom she plays for Theatre Calgary until June 15, Verzotti goes blond.
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'The wigs and costumes help me drop into the characters. It's always a big transformation, but they are what make me feel like Anne and Elle,' says Verzotti.
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'I've learned so much from playing Elle. She doesn't think badly about herself. I'm inspired by that. I've seen a mindset coach to help me do what Elle does naturally. My coach helps me understand why I am so hard on myself. There is none of that in Elle. She believes in herself. That's something I have to learn to do.
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'When Elle decides to go to Harvard, she has no negative feelings. She just takes her dog, and away they go. She knows she can do it. That's what's so great about her. That was the great thing about Anne in Anne of Green Gables, also. She was completely unafraid to speak her mind. She was so different than the rest of the uptight town.'
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Verzotti says the character of Elle teaches her arch rival, Vivienne, an important lesson: Do not try to make yourself look better by making someone else look bad.
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'Nobody benefits. It's a beautiful truth. At first, Vivienne tries to undermine Elle, but eventually they become the best of allies. They end up fighting for each other, not against each other.'
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Verzotti remembers having some of Elle and Anne's fearlessness when she was in Grade 12 at William Aberhart High School in 2012. CBC was running a contest called Over the Rainbow to find a girl who would play Dorothy in the Toronto version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Wizard of Oz. Verzotti was one of 20 finalists who went to the Dorothy Boot Camp, as it was called.
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'I was 17 years old. Very bright-eyed and inexperienced. But I had parents who believed in me.
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'That 20 was whittled down to 10, and I was one of them. I got eliminated, but not before I got to meet Andrew Lloyd Webber in his house in Barbados. One of the other girls was studying at Sheridan College in Toronto. She told me about the program and said that I should apply. I had already been accepted at the University of Calgary to study psychology, but after the experience with Over the Rainbow, I knew that what I really wanted to do.'
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