Hey guys, Jana here,
The next musical up for the “Live” treatment by a major network is ‘Hairspray‘ and NBC with Universal Television, will be bringing this one to fruition on December 7. This one has got some exciting players assigned, already. Jennifer Hudson and Harvey Fierstein!
Fierstein has been attached to ‘Hairspray’ since it’s adaptation to a Broadway show in 2002, the show has it’s foothold in the film world, which is kind of backwards, but John Waters wrote an directed such a fantastic film and love letter to his beloved Baltimore that it was inevitable that it find a lasting home on the boards of Broadway. Divine owned the role of Edna Turnblad in the film and set the precedent for a male playing the brilliant and feisty role. Fierstein re-created the the role for Broadway, and won a Tony for his efforts, and now he will be not only playing the role in the LIVE version, but he will write the teleplay.
Hudson has come on board to play the amazing Motormouth Maybelle! This isn’t much of a stretch for the singer/actress that is currently starring on Broadway in a revival of ‘The Color Purple‘.
‘Hairspray Live!‘ takes us to Baltimore in 1962 where teenager Tracy Turnblad is coming into her own and ready to make her dream of dancing on local TV program ‘The Corny Collins Show’. Once she achieves that dream, she spearheads a campaign to integrate the show. The cast is full of characters that are just fantastic and memorable, Tracy’s mother, Edna Turnblad; the superstar cutie on the show, Link; the 1960’s version of ‘Mean Girls‘, Amber. The cast is rounded out with characters Tracy wants integrated into the regular show instead of their separate night, Seaweed and his mother, the aforementioned Motormouth Maybelle.
The production crew behind the scenes is well steeped in theater success and consists of Director Alex Rudzinski, who was the man behind ‘Grease Live!’ and he will be joining stage director Kenny Leon (‘The Wiz Live!‘). Zadan and Meron will be executive producers as well as ‘A Few Good Men Live!‘. Doing choreography for the show is an alum from ‘Kinky Boots‘, Jerry Mitchell. Music and Lyrics are being handled by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (‘Smash‘).