Back in the mid-1980s, Cyndi Lauper was a Grammy Award-winning radio and MTV pop superstar when she got a call from actress Sigourney Weaver.
Weaver was preparing to play Melanie Griffith’s villainous boss in the Mike Nichols film “Working Girl,” and she encouraged Lauper, a fellow New York City native, to come in and read for a part. Lauper declined the offer to focus on her music, and the 1988 rom-com movie about an ambitious Manhattan secretary with big dreams went on to become a box-office smash.
Cyndi Lauper is the composer for “Working Girl” a musical based on the 1988 film. It’s making its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in mid-Nov.. (La Jolla Playhouse)
Fast forward to 2013, when Lauper was now the Tony Award-winning composer/lyricist for the Broadway musical “Kinky Boots.” Kevin Wade, the screenwriter for the movie “Working Girl,” asked her about writing some songs for a musical adaptation of the film, and this time she said yes.
“At the time (in the ’80s) I didn’t know who Mike Nichols was, and anyway I thought the movie came out great the way it was. But I thought the fact that the project came around to me again meant something,” Lauper said in an interview earlier this month. “Maybe I should do it because of the ‘80s … For music, it was a great time, so I thought it would be fun to do.”
A cast photo for La Jolla Playhouse’s world premiere musical “Working Girl.” La Jolla Playhouse artistic director, second from right in second row, is directing the production. (Samantha Laurent)
Fast forward again to this week, where “Working Girl” is finally making its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse. Preview performances begin Tuesday and the show runs through Dec. 7 at the Mandell Weiss Theatre.
Lauper has written the ’80s-inspired score and lyrics for the “Working Girl” musical, with the help of a few friends on a couple of songs: Rob Hyman, who she co-wrote the 1983 single “Time After Time” with, Sammy James Jr., who wrote the song “School of Rock” for the film and musical of the same name, and rapper Cheryl James (Salt of the rap duo Salt-N-Pepa) who has contributed some lyrics.
The cast of “Working Girl” poses with director Christopher Ashley (standing, second from right). (Samantha Laurent)
Theresa Rebeck is the bookwriter for the Cyndi Lauper-scored musical “Working Girl,” which will make its world premiere in La Jolla Playhouse’s 2025-26 season. (Cleo Lynn)
La Jolla Playhouse artistic director Christopher Ashley is the director of the theater’s world premiere musical “Working Girl.” (La Jolla Playhouse)
Melanie Griffith in a scene from the 1988 film “Working Girl.” The movie is being adapted into a world premiere musical making its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in Nov.. (20th Century Fox)
Anoop Desai as “Jack,” left, and Joanna “JoJo” Levesque as “Tess” in rehearsal for La Jolla Playhouse’s world premiere musical “Working Girl.” (Samantha Laurent)
Choreographer Sarah O’Gleby, front left, leads a dance rehearsal for the world premiere musical “Working Girl” at La Jolla Playhouse. (Rich Soublet II).
Co-stars Ashley Blanchet and Joanna “JoJo” Levesque participate in rehearsals for La Jolla Playhouse’s upcoming production of “Working Girl.” (Samantha Laurent)
Cast members Ashley Levin, left to right, Sydni Moon, Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, Alisa Melendez and Amy Hillner Larsen in rehearsal for La Jolla Playhouse’s world premiere musical “Working Girl.” (Rich Soublet II)
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The cast of “Working Girl” poses with director Christopher Ashley (standing, second from right). (Samantha Laurent)
The musical features a book by longtime New York City playwright Theresa Rebeck, who created the Broadway musical-themed TV series “Smash,” and whose Broadway credits include the plays “I Need That,” “Bernhardt/Hamlet,” “Dead Accounts,” “Seminar” and “Mauritius.”
Besides Lauper and Rebeck, most of the musical’s creative team are also women, including the choreographer, scenic designer, projections designer, costume designer and music director.
Christopher Ashley, the Playhouse’s Tony Award-winning artistic director, is directing “Working Girl,” which he signed on to back in 2015. This will be Ashley’s final show at the Playhouse before he steps down at the end of the year to become the artistic leader of New York City’s prestigious Roundabout Theatre Company.
“I’m so glad it’s my last piece here,” Ashley said. “I wish I could take credit for having planned it in a multi-year way, but actually the planets aligned and the 10-year development got us to this moment and it’s exactly the musical I’m delighted to go out on.”
The musical will tell the story of Tess McGill, a brainy young woman from Staten Island who lands a job as a secretary in the mergers an acquisitions department of a Manhattan brokerage firm. After her opportunistic boss, Katherine Parker, passes off one of Tess’s investing ideas as her own, Tess enlists her fellow secretaries and a handsome Wall Street businessman named Jack, in a risky plan to prove she has what it takes to make it on Wall Street.
Pop/R&B singer and “Moulin-Rouge! The Musical” Broadway alum Joanna “JoJo” Levesque stars in the production as Tess. Tony nominee Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer plays Katharine, TV actor and “American Idol” finalist Anoop Desai stars as Jack, Broadway actress Ashley Blanchet stars as Cyn, Tess’s best friend from Staten Island, and Joey Taranto stars as Tess’s boyfriend Mick.
Last week, Lauper, Rebeck and Ashley took part in a recent joint Zoom interview to talk about “Working Girl.” The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Cyndi, you’ve had quite a year, with “Working Girl,” your farewell tour finishing up, a TV special, an upcoming residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and you’ll be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on Nov. 8. Did you ever expect to be this busy 50 years into your career?
Cyndi Lauper: You don’t really plan for something like this … I wish the Rock & Roll thing had happened at a different point, but it is what it is and I’m doing it. The fact that there is a place like La Jolla Playhouse where you have a kind of think tank where you can put “Working Girl” up on its feet is exciting.
Q: Chris, you came into this project in 2015. What made you want to be part of the “Working Girl” team?
Chris Ashley: Even before any of us were involved, a lot of people have been wanting to turn this into a musical for a long time. It’s such a great story to musicalize. In the early days, it was going to be a jukebox musical. But as soon as I heard there would be a Cyndi Lauper score for this, I said I’m in. And I’ve had an extraordinary time with Cyndi. And also with Theresa (Rebeck) who has been with us for three years. She’s really brought so much into focus in such a beautiful way.
Q: Theresa, what brought you into this project and is this the first time you’ve written a musical book?
Theresa Rebeck: I created the show “Smash,” so people think I have more musical experience than I do. Since I showed up out here, especially having worked on it in the developmental process, it has been very exciting. To see all of it unfold — the acting, the directing, the music and the choreography — I thought this is an extraordinary scope and I’ve certainly never been involved in anything like that before.
Ashley: We’re lucky to have Theresa. Her whole body of work has been a magic act of comedy and really beautiful character writing. She has a really keen eye on what’s funny and demented about the world we live in.
Lauper: Well, I’m working with a woman I never worked with before and what an experience I’ve had. To work with a woman writer is interesting and fun for me. It’s exciting.
Q: Theresa, you seem like the perfect writer to adapt this story because you’ve written extensively about women, feminism and women in the workplace, like in “What We’re Up Against” and “Bernardt/Hamlet.” Can you talk about how you approached this material, which was originally written by a man?
Rebeck: Mostly what I do is write from a point of view. That’s one of the things you learn as a dramatic writer is to write your truth from where you stand. So it’s been exciting to constantly go back to that well. To work with Cyndi Lauper is front and center for all of us. That enterprise has been a great gift.
Lauper: The important thing is to remember what it was like, and kind of what could be. And to make it fun and entertaining for people. You want to make them laugh, you want to make them cry, you want to make them stand up and cheer. So it’s an interesting journey to take. When I first met Chris I was thinking I can write some songs. Then you’re in it and all of the sudden it becomes such a big partnership. That is the beauty of it and the whole theatrical community is so close-knit. Yyou work together to develop things. That’s really interesting and inspiring to be able to do that.
Q: Chris, as a director how have approached the idea of reinterpreting the film’s story and characters for the stage?
Ashley: Because it is a musical, there’s all these opportunities to go inside of people’s heads and find out what’s happening for them emotionally and that’s such a gift in telling this story. Also, we’ve really leaned into the friendship between Cyn and Tess being really the center of the story, I think more than the film was, and that’s been really satisfying.
Lauper: it’s also a romantic comedy so you can’t rule out that. I think the way Theresa has done it, it’s so much fun. Listen it’s going to be so great to see it.
Ashley: It’s so fun to stage a show in the 1980s. Everybody on this call lived the ‘80s, but we have lots of younger cast members who can’t quite believe any of that stuff really happened that way. There’s a moment where an early-days cellphone comes out and it’s enormous, like a brick, and how much is different form the ‘80s is hilarious.
Lauper: The first cellphone I saw wasn’t even that. It was in a suitcase … remember the answering machines?
Chris: I remember the first time I left an answering machine message. I thought, this will change everything.
Q: All of you have deep connections to New York. Cyndi, you were born in Queens, Chris your’e moving back there soon to join Roundabout and Theresa you’ve spent decades in the city. For each of you, what quintessential parts of your own New York experiences will be in the musical?
Lauper: I was born and bred there and still live there. No matter where I go there isn’t any other place like it. Especially the city. I know the drill about living in the outer boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island) and coming into Manhattan, which we call “the city.” To us, if you were working in the city that was a big deal. You’d always watch the women waiting for the train or public transportation and they always dressed differently … a little more classy.
I think that what I remember, and what I’d like to keep in the musical, is the grit and the different in the culture between the people in Manhattan and the people that were in the outer boroughs. There’s a big difference. Remember, the guy who owned Studio 54? He happened to be from Queens and wouldn’t let anbody from the outer boroughs in — “no bridge and tunnel.”
Ashley: In our production, there really are two New Yorks. There’s Staten Island — working class, the world of the secretaries, the world that takes the ferry in to the financial district in New York. And there’s Manhattan — the executives who are used to the corner office and, who have a whole different set of rules.
Rebeck: I’m from Ohio and I have lived here for 30 years. I think the show very successfully captures the romance of the city. We’re people of different types who all live together, and we dig it. A lot of different kinds of people creating community is something I think is fun and kind of holy.
Ashley: We’re lucky to have Hana Kim as our projections designer, who you remember from “Sumo” and “Redwood.” The show has a complicated set of video screens and she’s bringing a New York of the ‘80s to life with nods to 1980s MTV videos.
Q: Has there been a moment in rehearsals that was been really memorable for you?
Ashley: There’s one moment that’s very simple. We’re at a Staten Island bar and all the Staten Island characters come together and sing sort of joyously this song by Cyndi Lauper called “Fit Together.”
Lauper: That song has a sort of ska-’80s feel.
Rebeck: There’s a moment where Tess says “I’m tired of following the rules that someone else set up and I have nothing to do with it. I’m not going to let it stop me.” I’m a great one for breaking a rule here or there.
Lauper: Not me. Never! (everyone laughs)
Rebeck: I found something exhilarating about stepping forward and saying “I’m going to change the world.” And if that leads to breaking a couple rules, then so be it. I think it’s a great message.
Q: Looking back today on the villainous character of Katharine, I wonder if some of her actions were necessary because women in the ’80s had to fight for their rights in the business world.
Lauper: What she was trying to say in the movie was ‘It’s just business.’ There is one thing in the movie we’re not going to use (when Tess tells Katharine) … get “your bony ass” out of here. I thought that was not funny because it’s making fun of a woman’s body. But that’s what business was like in those days. (Katharine) is the villain, but she’s the one you most love to hate. But you won’t hate her because we got Leslie Kritzer playing her. She’s really funny.
Ashley: She’s a wonderful and amazing actor with wonderful comic timing. And also Theresa has written a wonderful last moment for her where she speaks something you really believe. It has a lot of dignity and truth in it. She’s a villain who gets her own last word.
Rebeck: And she says it like a rock star.
Q: Any last thoughts before we go?
Ashley: I want to say that Sarah O’Gleby, our choreographer, brings so much joy to the rehearsal process and an enormous skillset. I think people are going to be delighted the way the show moves.
Lauper: We’re going to try to entertain them. We want to make them feel happy and hopeful when they leave, because that’s what we’re supposed to be doing.
La Jolla Playhouse presents ‘Working Girl’
When: Previews, Tuesday, Oct. 28, through Nov. 8. Opens Nov. 9 and runs through Dec. 7. 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 1 and 7 p.m. Sundays
Where: Mandell Weiss Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, UCSD Campus, La Jolla
Tickets: $139-$159
Online: lajollaplayhouse.org
Originally Published: October 26, 2025 at 6:00 AM PDT