Stage by Stage: How Hairspray came to be

We’ve been hearing the bells for 23 years!

Marc Shaiman’s and Scott Wittman’s larger-than-life musical Hairspray is celebrating its Broadway anniversary this week.

This “Big, Blonde and Beautiful” piece, set in Baltimore, has seen performers across the globe teasing their hair and being welcomed to the sixties.

Here’s a history of the musical – which will always be “Timeless to Me”!

Good morning, New York City, London and beyond!

John Waters’s original 1988 film Hairspray (which was developed under the title White Lipstick) slowly and quietly became a cult classic. It introduced us to teen Tracy Turnblad, who dreams of becoming a TV star, bagging the school hunk, and fighting for integration on the all white Corny Collins, much to the dismay of her worried mother.

When producer Margo Lion saw the movie, she knew it had great potential to be a musical, despite the movie only featuring one piece of original music (the title song, sung by Rachel Sweet) and focusing predominantly on dance – think Madison lines and Mashed Potatoes. She enlisted the talents of Shaiman and Wittman (who wrote the tunes) and Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan (who wrote the book).

The musical was first seen in Seattle in 2002 and quickly headed to Broadway, where it ran for 2,642 performances before closing on January 4, 2009.

It wasn’t until October 2007 that Hairspray brought the unstoppable beat to the West End. At the Shaftesbury Theatre, the original creative team, including director Jack O’Brien and choreographer Jerry Mitchell, reunited for an impressive 1000 performances.

Since then, the musical has been seen all around the world, including on Royal Caribbean cruise ships, in Las Vegas, and on tours up and down the UK and US. The most recent touring production we’ve seen here in the UK has direction by Paul Kerryson and choreography by Drew McOnie – it remained relatively untouched until last year when Brenda Edwards, who has played the role of Motormouth Maybelle during three previous tours, signed on as co-director.

Meanwhile, the stage musical adaptation of Waters’ other film, Cry-Baby, which is set in 1954 Baltimore, recently received its UK premiere. Despite this, he has said in past interviews that theatre is not his thing, and he’s always happy to hand over the material, written based on a love for music from the era, to those in the know.

The Nicest Kids in Town

Hairspray features a r-r-r-roll call of much-loved characters, including Tracy’s pig-tailed BFF Penny, and goofy dad Wilbur, and the charming Seaweed, and his sweet little sister Inez, and the cast are just as beloved.

Whether it’s intentional or not, the performers taking on the central role of the “bad, bad girl who needs to be punished” have usually been at the start of their careers, much like Tracy who is chasing stardom. Marissa Jaret Winokur originated the role on stage, while Leanne Jones made her stage debut leading the London production (and picking up a WhatsOnStage Award, may we add).

Edna, Tracy’s mother, is traditionally played by a male actor in drag. This links back to the original film, where Harris Glenn Milstead, AKA Divine, created the character. Famously, Harvey Fierstein (yep, the very one!) portrayed Edna on stage, bagging a Tony Award and becoming the definitive blueprint.

Meanwhile, in the West End, Michael Ball played the role to much applause. Both performers have returned to the role on multiple occasions – Ball in the 2021 London revival, Fierstein in Hairspray Live! (more on that later) and at the Hollywood Bowl.

Other notable cast members who have appeared in the show on stage also include: Laura Bell Bundy (Broadway’s original Amber), Kerry Butler (Broadway’s original Penny), Tracie Bennett (London’s original Velma), Corbin Bleu (Seaweed at the Hollywood Bowl), Nick Jonas (Link at the Hollywood Bowl), Layton Williams (Seaweed on tour), and Marisha Wallace (Motormouth Maybelle in London).

Miss Teenage Hairspray… and other awards!

We all know that the biggest crown is supposedly Miss Teenage Hairspray, but when it was first seen on stage, Hairspray was nominated for a whopping 13 Tony Awards! It won eight, including Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Direction of a Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and acting nods for Fierstein, Winokur, and Dick Latessa, who played Wilbur.

It repeated its success in London, gathering a record-setting (at the time) 11 Olivier Award nominations, and going home with Best New Musical plus recognition for Ball, Jones and Bennett. Other new musicals in the race that year included The Drowsy Chaperone, Parade and The Lord Of The Rings. Now run and tell that!

Mama, I’m on the big screen now

In 2007, Hairspray broke even further into public consciousness when the star-studded film adaptation, directed by Adam Shankman, was released. The cast included big names: John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Amanda Bynes, James Marsden, Queen Latifah, Brittany Snow, Zac Efron, Elijah Kelley, Allison Janney, and Nikki Blonsky – another young star leading the cast. At the time, it delivered the biggest opening on record for a musical.

Almost ten years later, Hairspray aired live on NBC as one of their ambitious broadcasting productions. They found their Tracy Turnblad, Maddie Ballio, through an open casting call, and she starred alongside Fierstein, Martin Short, Jennifer Hudson, Ariana Grande, Kristin Chenoweth, and Dove Cameron, to name a few.

Five facts to impress your friends

The central television show, The Corny Collins Show, which Tracy uses to fight segregation, is based on the real TV variety show The Buddy Deane Show. Waters actually wrote a short story about the show for Baltimore Magazine, entitled “Ladies and Gentlemen… The Nicest Kids in Town” which later appeared in his book and kick-started the creation of the film.

Waters confesses to having written an entire script as a sequel to Hairspray, plus desires to stage it on ice, but it hasn’t surfaced, yet.

An average production of Hairspray features 60 wigs, and they get through three cans of the stuff each show.

Ricki Lake and Winokur (who portrayed Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 film and the Broadway version, respectively) made cameo appearances as employees of Mr Pinky’s in Hairspray Live!. The broadcast also marked the first time that Chenoweth and Grande worked together professionally, after they had both openly shared their admiration of each other publicly, and shared a very special role of Glinda.

Original Broadway stars Winokour, Butler, and Bundy reunited last year for a special cabaret show entitled Mama I’m A Big Girl Now.