COLORADO SPRINGS – Michelle Ruehl grew up in Detroit wanting to be a pilot, not a Delta Nu. More Maverick than pretty in pink.

You say it was hard for Elle Woods to get into Harvard Law? Only 14% of applicants get into the Air Force Academy. And fewer than 30% who do are women. Ruehl gets it. She did it.

Elle Woods was the class valedictorian? Ruehl is a retired Air Force Colonel who flew more than 800 combat hours in Afghanistan and has more medals than Michael Phelps to show for it. Not to mention a master’s degree and a doctorate. And she’s real.

Bend and snap!

Ruehl is also a mother, wife, actor and the director of the academy’s latest Thunderbolt II-sized theater production, “Legally Blonde, the Musical.”

Yes, the mighty Air Force has its own theater company called the Bluebards – the name is a mashup of Shakespeare’s nickname and the color of a Falcon’s sky. And they have been entertaining, enlightening and comforting the Air Force Academy and its surrounding community for 62 years.

Everything about the Bluebards’ story is surprising – starting with its very existence, followed by its smart, affable and Elle-mentally blonde commander in chief.

“Yes, I happen to be a colonel and a pilot,” Ruehl said one day before Thursday’s opening performance. “But my heart is with this theater company.” 

Turns out “Sonic,” as her Zoomie mates call her, has as much in common with the perpetually kind and optimistic Elle Woods as she does with Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun” alter ego.

“I didn’t care much for Elle Woods at first, frankly,” said Ruehl. “But when I did an in-depth study of this character, I thought, ‘My God – this could be representative of my life. I came here to the Air Force in 1999 as a fish out of water. Often, I was the only female in a flying squadron – and certainly the only one in Afghanistan.”

Ruehl is so Elle-like, in fact – both in look and outlook – that, back in 2008, when MTV created a reality show to chronicle the casting of the actor who would next play Elle in the Broadway adaptation of “Legally Blonde,” Ruehl flew to Orlando with her guitar, auditioned, and made it to the last round before filming began. (Her MySpace name wasn’t “Moxie” for nothing.)

Alas, the Air Force legal team was never going to let an active colonel become a reality TV star, so it ended there. (Actually, it ended with her returning to her C-130 airplane only to find it was now occupied by a whole bunch of little pink dogs from Victoria’s Secret.)

But the spirit of Elle Woods was forever infused in Ruehl, whose career has returned her to the Air Force three times since she graduated from the academy in 2003. And each time, in addition to a monster workload, she has asked to be the OIC – that’s “Officer in Charge,” in Air Force lingo – of the Bluebards.

On Thursday, a cast and crew of more than 40 Academy cadets, each destined to be an Air Force officer one day, opened “Legally Blonde, the Musical” in the academy’s massive Arnold Hall. It’s free and open to the public through Monday.

Wait, you might be thinking. That same satirical musical comedy that encourages young women to discover their own strength, intelligence and independence while poking fun at gender stereotypes, homophobia, racism and the kind of systemic attitudes that have historically thrived at patriarchal institutions like Harvard – and, gulp … the Air Force Academy?

The very same. 

The fictional Elle Woods is continually underestimated, degraded and shamed – and yet, she emerges from it all with her integrity and personal code of conduct fully intact – and that is a quintessential Air Force value.

In Elle, Ruehl saw a version of herself. “To look at this woman who says, I’m going to be me through all of it,” she said, “that inspired me to be my full self, too.”

Ruehl had been her full self earlier that same day, when she had an appointment to brief school officials on all things “Legally Blonde.” It was her first meeting with the academy superintendent since her retirement in April – which meant for the first time wearing civilian clothes.

She wore a pink dress.  

“When I am out of uniform, I feel like a fish out of water,” said Ruehl. “There is nothing about my clothes to say who I am like my uniform does. So, I thought, ‘What would Elle do?’ And that empowered me to stand there with confidence and tell 75 people, ‘We’re doing “Legally Blonde.”’

In a pink dress.

Ironically, in four months of rehearsals, the theater cadets never once saw Ruehl “in full birds,” as they say – meaning, in full colonel attire. But her civilian clothes most assuredly told them who she really is.

“Col. Ruehl actually wore something pink to every single rehearsal,” said junior cadet Elayna Caron, who plays an Elle Woods that Colorado Springs audiences might reasonably mistake for Kristen Bell. “But that is who she is. Like Elle Woods, she is perpetually kind. That’s just her personality.”

And she is no longer alone. “Now look at the new Attorney General,” she said of Pam Bondi: “She’s a blonde woman who wears pink.”

Making Colorado home

This unlikely theater troupe hails from 25 states – and one from Thailand. They have all come to Colorado Springs to train to become officers. The daily Air Force regimen is rigorous, often occupying the cadets’ every waking moment from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. They only get 12 minutes a day to sit for lunch.

The Bluebards, who put on three shows a year on a paltry budget of just $3,000 – are considered a club activity. So there are no excusals of any kind to accommodate the considerable demands of producing a theater show. Grace Buettner, a sophomore from Nashville, said it is not uncommon for an exhausted cadet to sleep under the stage. Buettner estimates she has devoted about 300 hours to “Legally Blonde” since auditions last November.

So why do they do it, when every minute in this four-year pressure-cooker is currency? “Because this is a release,” she said. “We all love it here. When we come in, we drop our Academy baggage at the door. In here, we are just purely ourselves and we get to be creative and sing and dance and laugh and just ignore cadet duties for a little bit.”

As a middle schooler in Nashville, all Buettner wanted was to perform in the school musicals. Instead, “they told me I’d be a good tech person,” she said, which awoke the budding warrior within. “So I became a wrestler and rugby player.” Then, an Air Force cadet. Now, she’s part of the “Legally Blonde” directing team, she performs in the ensemble and leads the backstage crew.

They clearly underestimated Buettner back in Nashville.

“I have found my place here,” she said. “I was just super stoked to be treated like a human and to be loved and cared for, and to be able to actually lead a little bit.”

Liftoff 1963

The history of the Bluebards spans all but five years of the Academy’s 67-year existence. The group began in 1963 as “The Bluebard Society” to perform light musical satires. But by 1965, it had grown into a legit theater company producing relevant war stories like the play “Stalag 17.”

Ruehl was an Air Force student when the 9/11 attacks happened and the stunned campus community gathered in Arnold Hall – home of the theater company – for a briefing. The Bluebards were staging “The Glass Menagerie” at the time, with Ruehl playing Laura Wingfield. The base went into complete lockdown. Nobody in or out.

“We had to make a decision: Do we do the show or not?” said Ruehl. “And we thought, ‘You know what? We’re going to go ahead and do the play for whoever’s here and needs it.”

The next performance was standing-room only – in a theater that seats more than 2,600.

What did that tell Ruehl about the power of theater at a time of national tragedy?

“I can tell you that, under those circumstances, this was the only place where people could gather and grieve and emote – and where that was not only appropriate, but accepted and necessary,” she said.

Theater, and specifically theater of war, has been the central focus of Ruehl’s academic life. Her doctoral dissertation focused on how theater can help individuals and communities heal from personal, social and historical trauma.

When she was deployed to Afghanistan, she flew airplanes for the Air Force. But she also taught English, theater and traditional folk music to local Afghan girls who were not allowed to go to school. “They were terrified of me as an American woman,” she said. “I was in a flight suit. I had an M9 pistol on my hip. I flew airplanes. But when I started to play music and doing acting and role-playing, their little faces would light up.”

Ruehl has since developed a handbook of tips for how to use theater for trauma-informed social interventions. 

“The irony is I would be much more comfortable directing something like ‘Les Miserables’ or ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ than ‘Legally Blonde’ because there is so much more trauma in those stories,” she said. “But in ‘Legally Blonde,’ we do have the scene where the professor hits on Elle. And I’m a sexual-assault victim advocate. So when it came time to do that scene, I had them all sit down, and we talked through unwanted sexual contact. That is assault. So I was able to use the power of theater to address this topic – even in a comedy.”

Leading with empathy

The Bluebards are proof that one general truth about theater is universal at any level. Theater provides both a place to play and a place to belong. And it saves lives. Even at the Air Force, where the players are all gods in training, from wing commanders to football stars. Because they are not gods. They are humans.

“Yes, I am a colonel, but I am also a victim advocate, and these cadets can tell me anything,” said Ruehl. “I have had multiple students over the last few years come up to me and tell me they were suicidal, or they were assaulted.”

Six years ago, Ruehl took a phone call telling her a cadet was at a local hospital saying she was going to kill herself. She didn’t ask for a cleric or her squadron commander. She asked for Ruehl – her director for “West Side Story.”

“I raced down there, I held her hand, and we sang songs together,” Ruehl said. “She’s now a first lieutenant, and she has a baby.” But when she was in crisis, Ruehl said, “I don’t think there was any other place she could have gone on this campus for help.”

Suddenly, the greater need for the Bluebards’ existence became clear. Theater isn’t just a novel club activity at one of the nation’s great military academies. It is a lifeline. 

“Think about it,” “Ruehl said. “We’re not just a university. We’re a warrior-making machine with no place for respite.”

But theater, she said, prepares these cadets to bear the responsibilities that come with officership by eroding stigmas, eliciting empathy and generating dialogue.

Drop in, drop out

The Monday runthrough before any opening night can be stressful. It’s one of the first – and final – opportunities to run the entire show before welcoming the campus community. On this day, the local media has been invited to sit in.

For the 20 senior cadets – half the present company – “Legally Blonde” will be their final time on a musical stage. Hailey Routson, who plays the hairdresser Paulette, wants to pilot an F-22 Raptor. Sawyer Stone, who plays the lascivious law-school professor (and plays drums for his worship team), is thinking about law school himself. Bridge Bach, who plays Elle’s dad, isn’t an actor at heart, but he always loved coming to the musicals and thought it would be fun to be in one before graduation.

“The Bluebards are the best part of most every day here at the Academy, and I thank them for instilling some joy in even the most hopeless days,” he wrote in his program bio.  

In many ways, watching the Bluebards warm up is nearly identical to watching pretty much any theater company anywhere in the world warm up. Small groups work on complex dance steps. A tech crew adjusts the lights. A crew member fits the actors with body mics. The director is besieged with questions from all sides. A buzz is in the air.

But there are differences. These actors address their director only as “colonel” or “ma’am.” Three female cadets gather in a corner of the stage not for gentle stretching exercises, but for a round of hardcore military-style pushups. An abandoned vending-machine burrito on the floor has just one bite taken out of it.

The room is awash with Ruehl family members and pets. The colonel’s husband, who is also the production’s pro-bono set designer, wrangles their son, who turned 6 on Thursday – marking the anniversary of his arrival on opening night of “The Music Man” in 2019. (The kid is dressed in a Batman shirt, but he seems destined for his chance to play Winthrop.)

Their daughter is an ensemble cast member, as is the family dog, Jango, who plays a kidnapped pup. Her parents have traveled from Michigan to celebrate both the birthday and the opening. Paul Ruehl may be the world’s only father to both a theater director and a colonel in the same daughter.

“Well, I am a musician myself, so it was very natural for Michelle to sing as well, “ he said. “But we have eight grandkids now, and I sing to all of them.”

That’s something that comes up again and again with these cadets. They largely come from military backgrounds but also from homes steeped in arts education and participation.

Caron was 6 and new to a town in Virginia when she and her sisters auditioned for a community theater production of “Annie” and they must have been good – because they all got cast. Wary of sending her daughters to this random community theater alone, Caron’s wife coerced her husband into auditioning – and he got cast as the butler. “We did so many shows together, we were like the Von Trapps of Virginia,” she said.

A family visit to Colorado Springs when she was 9 sealed her fate. My grandfather said, ‘You have to see the chapel’ – and it was awesome. I was going into ninth grade, and I just set my sights on coming here from then on.”

But shortly after this runthrough begins, this runthrough is over. The email everyone has been waiting to drop lands at precisely 1915 hours (that’s 7:15 p.m. for us civies). 

“They just got their job drops,” said Ruehl.

That’s when the academy’s entire junior class simultaneously discovers the immediate direction of their military lives. One of them is the actor playing Elle Woods.

“Each cadet is given a list of 10 possible jobs, and you rank how happy you would be to get three of them,” said Caron. “You work your whole time here to get good grades, to do well on your fitness tests, and to be highly ranked in your squadron – and then you put that all up to the Air Force gods.”

Rehearsal will have to wait.

Caron had put in for intelligence, public affairs and the job she both most wanted and least expected. And she got it.

“So I guess I’m going to be a remotely controlled aircraft pilot,” she said with elation.

(Never underestimate the power of pink.) 

Most everyone in the club, it turns out, got what they wanted. A party broke out. Then, it was back to work –  as if that were possible.

“My thought was, OK – we’re going to be here late,” Ruehl said.

Opening night

At Thursday’s opening performance, the excitement is palpable. Ruehl has surprised the cast by showing them a video selfie sent to them by Heather Hach, who grew up in Loveland and earned a Tony Award nomination for writing the book for the “Legally Blonde” musical. (That means all the non-singing lines.)

Backstage, Music Director Marc Napolitano whips the cast into a frenzy by reciting Shakespeare’s famous St. Crispin’s Day speech from ”Henry V.” (“We happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.”) The cadets are congratulated by two-star Major General Thomas P. Sherman, who joins them on a table in an impromptu dance party.

The performance, seasoned with the laughter and cheers of 400 in the audience, “was fantastic,” said Ruehl, who wants anyone who comes to the two remaining performances to fully consider the human beings behind the pom-poms, the bunny ears, the jump ropes and the prison jumpsuits.

“I want the audience to know that our warriors are talented and thoughtful and artistic human beings – they are not robots or technologically-driven war machines,” she said. “These are students with empathy and compassion, and they’re going to be thoughtful leaders.

“And some of them just happen to have Broadway-level talent.”

Ruehl never thought she would ever have Elle Woods to thank for, well, anything. But she does.

“I was empowered by ‘Top Gun.’ That’s what drove me to fly,” she said. “But now I see my own daughter looking up to Elle and wanting to go to law school, and I think, ‘Wow. Maybe this show will do for women what ‘Top Gun’ did for pilots.’”