John Waters’ original film version of Hairspray went on to become a cult classic in the 1990s and inspired Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan to write the musical in 2002. Hairspray: the Broadway Musical opened at the Neil Simon Theatre on August 15, 2002, had 2,642 performances, and closed on January 4th, 2009. It won 8 Tonys, including Best Musical in 2003, and the first London musical production was nominated for 11 Olivier Awards, won 4, including Best New Musical, Best Actress in a Musical, and Best Actor in a Musical in 2007. It is scheduled for a U.S National Tour and London revival in 2020.
You Can’t Stop the Beat -- Our Youth Striving for Change. Divine to be Human.
“Ma, it's changing out there! You'll like it. People who are different, their time is coming!” (Tracy Turnblad)
Times are changing! But are they really?
This is the question John Waters confronted as he was inspired to write his original film version of Hairspray in 1988. John Waters was inspired by the controversial, surprise, forced integration that a brave group of black and white teenage dancers staged on The Buddy Deane Show, the forerunner to Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, on August 13, 1962, in Baltimore, Maryland. As a result of the forced integration the young dancers bravely staged, the popular dance show got so many threats from the Baltimore public that it was canceled a few months later. Buddy Deane and his producers wanted to integrate their show, but Baltimore’s public outcry against integration stifled their attempts; however, there were monthly nights featuring dancers from black churches and the Boys and Girls Clubs. It was still controversial to expose American teenagers to black musicians and dances in 1962, even though the Baltimore public schools had been integrated since 1952, the first in the South.
Although integration plays a prominent role in Hairspray, the musical is really about acceptance and challenging our society’s cultural stereotypes. In Waters’ original casting, he chose to have Divine, a well-known Baltimore Drag Queen and friend, play Edna Turnblad, Ricki Lake playing Tracy Turnblad and Arvin Hodgepile as the Studio Producer. Waters’ choice of having Tracy’s mother, Edna, be in drag is a controversial choice, yet Waters believed that it was a way to visibly challenge our society’s stereotypes of gender roles. Casting Edna in drag did not change for the 2002 Broadway musical or the 2007 made for film musical. Harvey Fierstein played Edna, and won the 2003 Tony for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical in the 2002 Broadway musical, and John Travolta played Edna in the musical film version in 2007. Having Edna in drag further challenges our society’s cultural depictions of traditional male and female roles, making the audience think about the possibility of accepting more fluid gender roles than our traditional cultural norms of 1962 and, even, 1988. Hairspray was John Waters’ most accessible piece, because, as humans, we all just want to be accepted and enjoy living our lives, dancing to the unstoppable beat of merely being human.
Take this time to dance to the beat with us, and enjoy Hairspray: The Broadway Musical.
Kelly Buynitzky, English Teacher
