Hairspray - the sequel

Apparently we have not heard the last of Tracy Turnblad. New Line Cinema, which produced the movie version of the Broadway musical Hairspray, has asked John Waters to write a sequel. The plot is supposed to pick up the story of Tracy and her family in Baltimore in 1962, after the resolution of the first movie, in which they help integrate a teen dance program, the Corny Collins Show.

Director Adam Shankman told Variety: "I never thought of musicals as franchises, but it certainly worked with High School Musical, and the idea of working with that cast again, and creating new material and music, is a dream come true."

The first Hairspray, which came out in 2007 and was based on Waters' 1988 movie, did pretty well at the box office, earning more than $200 million worldwide. Sales of the DVD and soundtrack have also been strong. Plus, it got pretty good reviews. Metacritic gave it a total of 81 out of a possible 100 points on the critical acclaim scale. It's nice to see a movie musical be considered a commercial and critical hit.

The studio is aiming for a release in July 2010, and is hoping to snag the same cast, including John Travolta, Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Marsden, Zac Efron, Amanda Bynes, Queen Latifah and newcomer Nikki Blonsky as Tracy. Although according to Variety, none of the actors had a sequel clause in their contracts.

For me, even more important than the cast returning is the news that Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman are going to write new songs for the sequel. The score of Hairspray is one of my all-time favorites. (Plus, I was thrilled to actually meet Scott Wittman in New York in May, and he is a very sweet, gracious man).

Writing partners Shaiman and Wittman, who have also been life partners for more than 25 years, created some brilliant, catchy tunes. Songs like "Good Morning Baltimore," "The Nicest Kids in Town," "You Can't Stop the Beat" and "Run and Tell That" perfectly capture the spirit of 1962. Plus, "I Know Where I've Been" is such a great civil-rights anthem, it sounds like it could have been written in the '60s.

Besides the music, of course, two other big reasons for the appeal of Hairspray are its compelling story and its unforgettable characters. Because I love the original so much, I'm really excited about a sequel. But I think that this is uncharted territory. I mean, musicals don't usually have sequels, do they? Will John Waters be able to come up with a plot that's as dramatic? After you've integrated The Corny Collins Show, what can you do for an encore?

Update: One of the cool things about Marc Shaiman is that he keeps in touch with his fans through the Broadway World message boards. (Yes, they're a guilty pleasure. I'm addicted to them). Here's what he had to say today about the prospects for a Hairspray sequel:

"They've simply hired John Waters to write a treatment. That is like a marriage proposal (and an exciting one), but it is not a birth announcement. But, ya' have to admit, it's impressive that the movie studio actually came to the creators (of the film) to do this. That is practically unheard of in Hollywood (think GREASE 2). And Lord knows Scott & I could write songs for these characters (and any new ones John Waters dreams up!) for the rest of our lives."

An outsider again

In the USA Today blog Pop Candy, John Waters offers a little post-mortem on the demise of Cry-Baby, the second musical based on one of his movies to make it to Broadway, which closed on June 22 after 113 performances.

Why do you think Cry-Baby didn't translate to Broadway and Hairspray did?

"I never answer my critics, but a negative review in the New York Times on a Broadway musical is almost impossible to survive. And maybe the '50s are a little used up. ... I wrote a letter to the cast and everybody who was involved, and I basically said, "You know, the cliche is your productions are all like your children, and I like the one that causes the most trouble and is misunderstood." So I guess that would be Cry-Baby. You know, I was an insider, and now I'm an outsider again, so I have to thank them for that."

Cry-Baby

I know it's not fair to criticize a show for not being enough like another show, but I loved Hairspray when I saw it on tour last year and because of that, I had such high hopes for Cry-Baby, another musical based on a John Waters movie.

Unfortunately, not only did Cry-Baby not make me cry, it hardly even made me laugh. The plot, about a "bad" boy from the wrong side of the tracks who falls in love with a "good" girl from the right side of the tracks, has lots of promise, but the book by Thomas Meehan and Mark O'Donnell wasn't as sharp and witty as I would have liked. I can't believe this is the same team that wrote Hairspray. Maybe my short-term memory is going, but I can't even remember any funny lines.

Cry-Baby's songs, with lyrics by Daily Show writer David Javerbaum and music from Adam Schlesinger, of the pop-rock band Fountains of Wayne, were just mildly funny. The opening number, "The Anti-Polio Picnic," was a promising start, but other than a few references to "Commies," the musical didn't seem to capture the 1950s in all of its misplaced complacency, sexual repression and Cold War hysteria. I guess I expected something more over the top hilarious from Javerbaum, given his association with The Daily Show.

There was very little of the incisive social and political satire, catchy tunes, imaginative sets or quirky, engaging characters that I loved in Hairspray. Even Rob Ashford's choreography didn't excite me very much - although in "Jailyard Jubilee" I did learn quite a bit about how license plates are made. I know there's been some comparison to The Wedding Singer, but I thought Chad Beguelin's lyrics and Ashford's choreography were better than anything in Cry-Baby, especially in a song like "All About the Green," which really captured the 1980s on Wall Street.

I wanted James Snyder's Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker to be, well, badder, maybe more misunderstood, more brooding, more smoldering, more dangerous, more of a character. The same for "good girl" Allison, played by Elizabeth Stanley. She was sweet, but she should have been more of the quintessential 1950s "good girl," so that when she fell for the "bad boy," the contrast could be even more stark and funny.

On the other hand, I thought Harriet Harris really played it to the hilt as Mrs. Vernon-Williams, Allison's very proper, somewhat snooty, upper-crust grandmother. Maybe she's played this type of role before, but I thought she was pretty funny. And Alli Mauzey was wonderfully demented as Leonora, a girl with an unrequited crush on Cry-Baby. (Has there ever been a more perfectly titled song for a character than "Screw Loose?") To me, their performances were more memorable than the leads.

The poster for the show kind of hints at what I was expecting, but Cry-Baby itself doesn't really follow through. Snyder's Wade Walker is nowhere near as scary as the drawing on the cover of the Playbill. The whole thing just felt kind of flat and blah - like white bread and mayonnaise when I was really looking forward to some spicy mustard on rye.

Hairspray

I hadn't started my blog when I saw the Broadway musical "Hairspray" on tour in May, or when the movie came out in July, and I'm not sure the Internet had even been invented yet when the original John Waters movie came out in 1988. So, with the DVD of the movie musical being released on Tuesday, it's a good time to catch up.

I watched the original movie again a few months ago, after seeing the musical for the first time. Let me just say that the story of plus-size Baltimore teenager Tracy Turnblad's attempt to integrate a television dance show is captivating in any form.

Nikki Blonsky, plucked from obscurity at a Long Island ice cream parlor, makes a plucky and sweet Tracy in the musical version. While I love Harvey Fierstein's gravelly-voiced Edna Turnblad on the Broadway cast CD, John Travolta does a good job in the movie, especially in his duet with husband Wilbur, played by Christopher Walken.

But while I enjoy all three versions, I'd have to say that the stage musical is my favorite. There's just nothing as thrilling as seeing the songs performed live. You simply don't get the same sense of energy, the same adrenaline rush, seeing it in a movie theater. Although the movie is still a lot of fun.

For me, "Hairspray" really brings home the optimism of the early 1960s, in the years before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. There was a sense that America was becoming a better place, a more inclusive place, not just for African-Americans, but for all Americans. And the move toward greater freedom and equality was unstoppable.

"Hairspray" is all about the power of music to bring people together, to galvanize a movement, to change lives. Writing partners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who have also been life partners for more than 25 years, have created some brilliant, catchy pop tunes.

Here's a good interview with Shaiman from last spring, when he received the ASCAP Henry Mancini Career Achievement Award in Film & Television Music. And here's a 2005 interview with Shaiman and Wittman in Washington, D.C.'s MetroWeekly, where they talk about how they became involved with "Hairspray."

Ok, I know I'm partial to pop-oriented Broadway scores, but I especially love the music from "Hairspray." I never get tired of listening to it. Perhaps the music, and the book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, make "Hairspray" more mainstream, more saccharine sweet, but I think they also make it better.

Songs like "Good Morning Baltimore," "The Nicest Kids in Town," "You Can't Stop the Beat" and "Run and Tell That" perfectly capture the spirit of 1962. Plus, "I Know Where I've Been" is such a great civil-rights anthem, it sounds like it could have been written in the '60s. After hearing and seeing it performed on stage, I wanted to jump up and give the song a standing ovation. (And Queen Latifah performs it beautifully in the movie).

Another thing I like about the musical is that it has great roles for white and black actors. It would have been too easy, and wrong, to make "Hairspray" a civil right story told solely from the perspective of a white teenage girl. But "Hairspray" truly is an integrated musical, in its characters, its storyline and its songs.

Shaiman told MetroWeekly that the creators of "Hairspray" were preparing to license it for high school and middle school productions. There was concern, Shaiman said, that some schools might not have enough black students to put on "Hairspray." They've been asked if "we wanted to think of how to rework the show so that it's not about the black civil rights movement but [something else]. But no, it is what it is. John wanted to make a musical comedy about racism, so it's important."

The two-disc version of the DVD, which of course I plan on getting, sounds like it has some great extras. There are two documentaries, one on the making of the movie and a second tracing the evolution of the original film and the Broadway stage show. There are also two commentaries, one with producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, and a second with director Adam Shankman and Blonsky, as well as deleted scenes and a feature on the music of "Hairspray."

The message of "Hairspray," about standing up for what you believe in, about believing in yourself, seems to have staying power. In movie theaters, "Hairspray" made nearly $200 million worldwide. When a strike hasn't shut it down, the show plays to near-capacity audiences at Broadway's Neil Simon Theatre. It continues to tour across the United States. Stage versions are also being enthusiastically received in London and South Africa.

I'm just glad that the story is finding such a wide and enthusiastic audience, no matter what form it takes. It's been 45 years since the events depicted in "Hairspray," and while much has changed for the better in America, it's still worth a trip back in time to see how far we've come and what it took to get there.