By Audrey Tone
Now, for a limited time only, catch the Tony Award® winning and highly entertaining musical, Hairspray!, at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre between May 30th, 2023 and June 4th, 2023. This refreshed, new, and exciting North American tour of Hairspray! includes a noteworthy cast featuring RuPaul’s Drag Race star Andrew Levitt as Edna Turnblad, former American Idol contestant Sandie Lee as Motormouth Maybelle, and debut Hairspray! lead Niki Metcalf as Tracy Turnblad.
The story is set in Baltimore in the 1960s where racial inequality was a prevalent issue in many ways, especially in media representation. Additionally, the issue of weight stigma was also a point of concern in the media. At the time, Tracy Turnblad, a higher-weight, 16 year old girl from Baltimore, was eager to be on the hottest TV show at that time, The Corny Collins Show, which was a teenage dance show featuring a cast of non-diverse and fit teenagers. She also dreamed to be with one of the main dancers of the show, Link Larkin, played by Nick Cortazzo. Despite Tracy looking different from the typical dancers on the show, she was still eager to audition. Although her mother Edna did not want Tracy to audition, for fear of rejection and weight discrimination, Tracy persisted on and auditioned anyway. Unfortunately, Edna’s fear became true as Tracy was rejected almost immediately due to her appearance.
Meanwhile, as a result of Tracy’s school attendance issues and having a tall hairstyle, of which was deemed as a class interruption, she constantly found herself in detention. However, this eventually works in her favor as she meets a group of talented African American boys there, who end up introducing her to their other friends. They were then able to teach her some stylish, new dance moves that eventually led to her being re-inspired to continue to work toward her goal of performing on The Corny Collins Show, which she did eventually secure a role in.
Although she was fulfilling her dream by dancing on the show and spending more time with her love interest, Link Larkin, she became increasingly displeased with the lack of diversity in media and wished that her talented African American friends could dance with her on the show as well. Fueled by this frustration, Tracy plans a protest in which she would invite her African American friends on set with her to perform on the show while holding signs advocating for equal representation in media. Seeing that this was highly frowned upon during that period of time, Tracy and her friends end up in jail. Once they get out of jail, they devise a new plan to take down the non-inclusive executives of The Corny Collins Show and achieve the goal of having a diverse cast on the show. This plan ended up working, and the story comes to a close with Tracy and Link becoming a couple and dancing with all of their friends to the song “You Can’t Stop the Beat” on The Corny Collins Show which was a significant achievement during that time.
You won’t want to miss this fresh, dynamic, and exhilarating performance of Hairspray!; act now, tickets are selling fast!
