Hairspray

Last night, I went to the Kennedy Center to see "Hairspray". The show was a movie in 1988, but was produced on Broadway in 2002. If you Google John Waters, you will get about 60,000 hits, you can get a professional description of "Hairspray". It is particularly interesting to see the movie stars who were in the original movie. I will give you my strictly amateur version. John Waters grew up in Baltimore, and like most writers, he wrote about his own observations in life. In this show, he created caricatures of people he saw in real life in Baltimore in the 1950s. Television stations in many East Coast cities during the late 50s and early 60s had afternoon shows for teenagers in which teens danced to popular rock music, and this show was about the teen dance show in Baltimore, or more precisely, about the integration of the show by both unattractive teens and Blacks. Waters wrote characters who were caricatures of people. The lead in the show was a "chunky" girl who wanted to be a dancer on the show, but was not "beautiful" enough to be on TV. Her mother was an obese woman, and her dad was was a very thin man who owned a souvenier stand. Her best friend was a pretty dull girl, whose mother was even less brilliant. The pretty girl on the TV show was the daughter of the show's producer, and a spoiled brat. The tension of the show was in the struggle of the plump girl to get on the show. An added struggle was also introduced when she was sent to detention at school and there, learned new dance steps from Black kids who were also in detention. In the end, all worked out happily. The music of the show was good, upbeat, but not memorable. An added bonus in the show last night was that the normal lead in the show was not able to perform and was replaced by her understudy, who was brilliant -- Katrina Rose Dideriksen. When she came out for her bow at the end of the show, she got a standing ovation, and she cried at that. It was quite touching. A very good show. Here is the link:
http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showEvent&event=TFTSH#details