In the grand tradition of beloved movies making the leap to musical theater, the cult-favorite 1999 teen comedy Jawbreaker is getting a musical makeover. Written by the film’s creator Darren Stein, with music by Jeffrey Thomson and lyrics by Jordan Mann, the new stage adaptation brings the deliciously dark world of Courtney Shayne, Fern/Vylette and the “Flawless Four” to life with synth-pop, ballads and plenty of choreography. The production is currently getting its first workshop performances at Los Angeles’ Hudson Backstage Theater, with hopes of eventually making its way to Off-Broadway or London.

Helping bring that heightened, glamorous and deliciously theatrical world to the stage is none other than Laganja Estranja, who makes her official debut as a solo choreographer with the production. Drawing on her musical theater background and her experience in drag and the ballroom scene, Laganja has created a choreographic language that pays homage to the original film while giving the musical its own distinct energy.

For Laganja, the project is particularly personal. She identifies strongly with Fern/Vylette’s journey from outsider to powerful, recognized woman—a connection that takes on added significance in the musical, where the character is trans. And Jawbreaker is only one of several theatrical projects on her increasingly busy résumé: she is also co-choreographing Miss Step, an original musical about a trans woman that is slated for Off-Broadway next year.

With the Night of the Living Drag tour also on the horizon, Laganja has plenty to keep her busy. The Halloween tour’s “Camp Slayaway” spectacular will see her take the stage alongside Violet Chachki, Jaida Essence Hall, Raja, Nicole Paige Brooks and Salina EsTitties for an ’80s slasher-inspired night of high hair, neon lights, twisted comedy and killer performances.

We caught up with Laganja to talk about bringing Jawbreaker to the stage, finding her own choreographic language, identifying with Fern/Vylette, the whirlwind 14-day rehearsal process, and what’s next as she continues to expand her career beyond the drag stage.

How did you get involved with choreographing Jawbreaker?

Well, I’ve been a personal friend of Darren Stein, who is the original writer and director of the movie, for many years now. We’re both Capricorns, and so we always get together at December and celebrate each other’s birthdays. He mentioned to me several years ago that he’d been working on this musical for a long time. And of course, immediately I was like, “Oh, I have to choreograph.” At the time, I believe he had someone else in mind for choreography, so I was like, “Well, if I can be a dance captain or an assistant, you know, I would love that opportunity.”

Cut forward to this year, and I found out that he was officially getting his first workshop production of Jawbreaker underway and again, I was like, “I’d really, really love to be one of the choreographers.” I know that he put a good word in for me, but I also know that Matt Di Carlo, who is our director, is a really good friend of Connor Gallagher, who is a personal friend of mine that I’ve been working with for over three years now on another musical called Miss Step, which is also an original musical about a trans woman. Connor and I have been co-choreographing that, like I said, for about three years now, and we’re officially going to off-Broadway next year with Playwrights Horizons, which we’re very excited about. But I just said, “Hey, could you put a good word in with Matt? I’d love to just be given the opportunity to pitch as a choreographer.” So, lo and behold, a couple of days later, Matt, the director, reached out and said, “I hear you’re interested. I’d love to hear your pitch.” I came to him with a full pitch in mind, every number, what I would do, what props I would use, how I would choreograph it, and just sort of my vision overall for the whole show. And several weeks later I got a call that I got the job. It was truly a dream come true, as this is my first official project as a solo choreographer on a show.

Jawbreaker is such an iconic movie in the dark teen comedy genre. What does choreography bring to that world that audiences might not expect?

It’s so interesting…when it first got announced as a musical so many people were like, “I don’t know how the four girls are going to move who don’t seem like dancers.” But to me, as someone who grew up in musical theater, I just knew that it would have to be a language that felt developed and motivated by their characters. One of the things that I really tried to capture in the choreography, specifically for the “Flawless Four”, was that slow motion that we’re used to seeing in the movie as they’re walking down the hallway. I really incorporated that into the choreography, so they’re actually moving in slow motion at the beginning of the show. And, again at the end of the movie, we see Courtney getting corsages thrown at her at the prom, again in slow motion and I did the same thing with the choreography. So, the show opens and ends with sort of a slow-motion type of choreography hearkening back to the film, but also of course adding my own flair.

I think another reason Matt chose me as the choreographer is because I really did bring a sense of drag to the choreography. A lot of the moves that are seen throughout the musical are moves that I do every night as Laganja that are taken from both the ballroom scene and the drag scene, so I think I was really able to infuse a lot of musical theater – my background and what I grew up doing – with what I do now as a drag queen.

How do you approach choreographing a musical when you’re working with such heightened, campy characters and a story that already has its own strong visual identity?

For me, that actually made the process easier because I had something that I was able to use as inspiration and jump off from. I studied the movie religiously. I couldn’t even tell you how many times I watched it and each time I would watch it with one character in mind and take notes on that character. And, throughout the course of studying it and taking all these individual notes, I developed a language that I felt would work for each character but that would also have a through line overall.

Did you find yourself identifying with one character in particular as you were developing the choreography?

Yes. I definitely identify with Fern/Vylette. I think so many trans people did, and I think that’s one of the reasons Darren Stein decided to make that character trans in the musical – because her storyline has so many similarities to those of trans women. Not feeling like we belong, feeling like an outcast, and then getting through transformation, power and success and recognition. So yeah, I identify so much with that character and her real journey throughout the show.

Was there a particular number or a scene that was especially fun or especially challenging to choreograph?

My favorite scene was to choreograph is a song known as “Queen Bitch”. It’s once Vylette has risen to popularity, and she and Courtney are battling over becoming prom queen. Actually, the character Foxy (or Marcy) sings and it starts with, “Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready for the battle of the bitches?” Then she sings this song about Vylette’s growing popularity and how she’s the queen bitch now and what will that mean and, for me, it’s the one number in the show where I really got to go full out on the choreography.

I would say that a lot of the choreography in the show was character driven, and also I was working with mainly actors and singers first. But for that number in particular, I got to work with Jane Papageorge, who is an amazing dancer in addition to her singing and acting, and so I was really able to push the boundaries a bit more than any other number. So naturally that’s my favorite because I do feel like it is the most traditionally choreographed in the way that I would, love to do when we hopefully make it to Broadway.

What’s the biggest difference between performing choreography yourself and creating choreography for others?

The biggest difference is it’s a lot easier. When I have to perform my own choreography night after night, it can be quite challenging, but when I’m doing it on others, I’m able to tell them to turn faster and lift up more and be more of an onlooker as opposed to the artist myself having to do the choreography.

You’ve been known for bringing enormous energy to the stage when you perform. How do you teach stage performers to capture that energy while still making the choreography their own?

Unfortunately, this process was extremely quick. We literally only had 14 days to stage the entire musical. I’ll be honest, I didn’t get to do as much of the performance work as I would’ve liked, and I’m so blessed that the cast is very talented and that they rose to that challenge and met it on their own. But I would say as a performance coach, often what I’m looking at is dynamics and texture, and that the way movement is articulated throughout each phrase of movement that I’ve choreographed. I did play a lot with dynamic through the choreography. Like I said, there’s a lot of movement that’s done in sort of a slow-motion vibe. And then there’s a lot of movement that’s really detailed and articulated. So I would often try, in between teaching and cramming all of this to give them notes on why this move was particularly there, whether it was story-driven or whether it was, shape-driven. But like I said, we really didn’t get to dive in fully into that process of performance qualities like I would’ve loved to have.

Besides the word-of-mouth and getting the show to Broadway, what do you hope audiences are going to take away from seeing Jawbreaker?

I hope the fans of the movie are going to love this as an ode to the original but also love the things that have changed. And I’m also hoping that people will realize that this is meant to be a musical. We’ve seen its competitors, like Heathers and Mean Girls, turned into musicals, and Jawbreaker was always my favorite of the three. It’s definitely my era. It’s a Millennial’s movie. And ultimately the way that Jeff and Jordan, our musical composer and lyricist, were able to take so many of the iconic lines, like “Peachy Keen”, and turn them into full-fledged songs is quite remarkable. I think the music stands on its own, the script stands on its own and hopefully what I’ve added choreographically stands on its own as well.

I’m just hopeful that people will want more of this, will want to see it in their town, and will get more investors to come on board because Knot Free Productions was really the only producer on this show, and it was a lot put on [producer] Zach [Harris’] arms. He’s a doctor outside of being a musical theater enthusiast. He was working many late-night hours or early morning hours in the ER and then still coming to rehearsals – and we’re so grateful that he took a risk on this show and really allowed us to go above and beyond what was expected of a workshop. If you’re not familiar, workshops are usually done at mic stands. They’re usually very limited, but Matt Di Carlo, who is an incredible Broadway director, and myself are…I don’t want to say competitive, but we’re highly motivated to really take this workshop and our limited resources and make the most of it. And I can honestly say I’ve never seen a workshop done to this caliber in such a short time. We had full costumes, many of which were provided by me, a set and a full lighting design. I think most people who are going to this, especially in LA and who don’t really know what a workshop is, will have no idea that this is a workshop. It really does feel like a full production. We really pushed the bounds.

And again, I’m so grateful to Matt that he and I were on the same page of we’ve got to make this spectacular because, when working on Miss Step, my other project, it’s taken us many workshops and many readings and small donor benefits to get it to go to Playwrights Horizons now off Broadway next year. We’re really hoping that this process will be expedited in a way because of the cult following with the movie and also because of what we were able to create with such limited resources in such a short time.