Electrician Melissa Ciaramello of Chepachet works on a set of lights at the Providence Performing Arts Center yesterday morning as crews move in the show Legally Blonde. The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

About midmorning yesterday, a 53-foot blue-and-silver tractor trailer rumbled up to the loading dock at the rear of the Providence Performing Arts Center. Workers began unloading crates of costumes and boxes of tools.

Since the beginning of the week, trucks have been arriving at PPAC with sets, lights and the computers that will be used for Legally Blonde The Musical, the Broadway hit that kicks off its national tour here Sept. 21.

The show, which runs through Sept. 28, will leave here for a 36-city tour that will last at least a year. But it will have all started in Providence, bringing a bit of prestige to the city and to PPAC, which hasn’t opened a national tour since 1985, when it hosted Dream Girls.

“It’s a real coup for the city,” said Lynne McCormack, head of Providence’s office of Art, Culture and Tourism, which has made an effort to welcome the touring company. McCormack said there was stiff competition among cities vying for the honor of opening the tour.

“It’s important for PPAC’s bottom line,” said McCormack, “but it’s also important for the city.”

In the coming weeks, about 100 cast and crew members affiliated with the show will spend time eating in local restaurants and staying in hotels. It has been estimated that their stay will translate into $1 million in spending, according to producer Mike Isaacson. Isaacson has said another 200 friends and family members are expected to spend time in Providence.

Legally Blonde is the first of two shows to open national tours at PPAC this fall. Grease kicks off a tour in early December. And there is talk of opening a couple of more tours here next season.

PPAC president Lynn Singleton said that enhances the theater’s image and puts it in a position to book Broadway tours earlier in the run, when they are fresher.

Singleton said that ticket sales for the show have been doing well.

One reason PPAC won out over other cities, said stage manager Tom Bartlett, is its proximity to New York and to the shops in Connecticut where most of the sets were made. But the city has also rolled out the red carpet.

Bartlett was pleased to see that Pine Street, where the loading dock is located, was closed to traffic yesterday.

“That’s huge,” he said. “You couldn’t do that in Chicago.”

Yesterday, Bartlett was giving tours of the backstage. About a dozen crew members were on hand, as well as another 40 members of the Local 23 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. The men were loading in sets and securing lights.

In all, the crew will be on hand for about a month getting the show prepped for the road and working out any technical glitches. The 28-member cast, which has been rehearsing in New York for the past three weeks, arrives Monday. Cast members will then be in rehearsal for a couple of weeks, working 10-hour days.

“This is all about getting ready for the tour,” said Bartlett, who hails from Las Vegas. “We’re trying to come up with quick ways to solve problems.”

Besides the crew and cast, most of whom are staying at the Biltmore, the company travels with four dogs — two Chihuahuas and a two bulldogs that play key roles in the show. Because the Biltmore doesn’t allow animals, the dogs will stay with their handlers at the Hilton Providence.

The dogs come in pairs because they have understudies.

Legally Blonde, which opened on Broadway in April 2007 and is still running, follows the exploits of fashion-conscious sorority girl Elle Woods, who goes off to Harvard Law School in an effort to win back the boyfriend who dumped her for someone more “serious.” Along the way, she learns to stop obsessing about having a man in her life and embarks on a journey of self-discovery.

Becky Gulsvig, who was the understudy on Broadway, will star as Elle in the tour. Two finalists from an MTV show that set out to find a replacement for Laura Bell Bundy, the Broadway lead, will be joining the cast. Lauren Zakrin is Gulsvig’s understudy and Rhiannon Hansen will play Elle’s friend, Margot.

The touring show will look a lot like the Broadway version, said Bartlett, with minor changes. Some of the props on Broadway are automated, he said, which is not the case with the tour. And the tour has added several 18-foot-high metal-and-wood columns that represents Elle’s sorority house and Harvard.

Bartlett characterized the Legally Blonde tour as a medium-sized show, as opposed to something more along the lines of The Lion King. He said it takes six 53-foot trucks to cart it about the country. Once it’s on the road and the bugs have been worked out, it will take about 12 hours to load into a theater, rather than the week it has taken for the opening in Providence. The technical crew and cast will spend the next year criss-crossing the country on planes and tour buses.

And it is up to tour manager Nathan Gehan to make sure all goes smoothly. Gehan, a New Hampshire native, makes sure the show’s personnel know where gyms are for workouts and where to conduct banking and the like.

With a base of 10,000 subscribers, Singleton said the producers of the show are expecting a big turnout for the week the show is in town. They will then post box office numbers in trade journals, which if they are good, will make other cities feel more confident about booking the show.

Opening night, which is Sept. 23, is expected to attract out-of-town critics and press people with the show, along with some of the 100 New York investors, said Gehan.

Said Singleton: “It never hurts to have those people in your building.”

cgray@projo.com