Review of Hairspray the Musical in New York City

During Spring Break, I visited New York with my old high schools' choirs. I have to say that I fell in love with New York city, as so many do. I was most looking forward to seeing two Broadway shows. This paper will be about the first of the two musicals, Hairspray.

The place is Baltimore and the time is 1962. Hairspray tells the story of Tracy Turnblad, an overweight teenager who loves to dance and has some crazy hair. Her biggest dream is to be on The Corny Collins Show, a dance show that features pretty, skinny girls and very handsome boys. When Tracy actually gets on the show, she gets to meet Link Larkin, her biggest crush and the heartthrob of every other teenage girl. The star of The Corny Collins Show is Amber Von Tussle, a popular girl who has it out for Tracy and who is competing against Tracy for Link's heart.

Then there is Tracy's parents, Edna and Wilbur Turnblad. They gave Tracy support when she needed it the most. There's also Penny Pingleton, Tracy's best friend, who is a skinny, dorky girl. She's a really funny character who has a thing for Seaweed, a black student at Tracy's school and is also part of the record store scene and The Corny Collins Show when it is integrated. Seaweed and his friends were the reason for integrating the show, along with the help of Tracy and Penny. Amber Von Tussle's mom also played a role in the show. Velma Von Tussle didn't want Tracy to be part of the show either. She was against the integration too.

The play is trying to say that it doesn't matter what your skin color is, what your weight is, or anything about appearance matters. Yeah, Tracy is overweight, but she has a lot of talent. At the end of the musical, blacks are integrated on The Corny Collins Show, which I think is pretty cool. Penny and Seaweed fall in love, even though they have different skin colors. It shows that skin color doesn't matter and it shouldn't matter to anyone, not even Mrs. Pingleton.

Hairspray was so visually entertaining, it could have had no speaking roles whatsoever and still be awesome. The use of lighting was at it's best when the wall of lights came on. It came out towards the end and the lights blinked and moved in all sorts of ways. They changed colors too! It was so cool. The costumes were so colorful and true to the time. They were a bit over exaggerated but they were cute and flashy and perfect for this show. There were a lot of funny hairstyles, including the beehive, afro. Tracy had the "skunk" look to her hair, which means her bangs were blonde and dark brown streaks and the top of her hair blonde with the bottom dark brown. The hair was all very BIG, to say the LEAST. The set was pretty minimal, actually. During the prison scene, the performers each had a piece of the bars of the prison cell and made them very believable, even though they were soft and lightweight. They hung their arms through them and put their feet on the bottom part so they wouldn't fall over, which looked real. The Corny Collins Show set had a platform with a podium and a sign and that was pretty much it. Tracy's home was just a staircase that went up to a platform with a TV, small wall, and an ironing board for Tracy's mom. Pieces of the set that were larger rotated into other parts which was nifty. My favorite set was the record store because it had multicolored beads hanging down in front of a door and records on everything. The people in the record store had on really colorful outfits so everything was wild and bright and fun.
The language of the play was different with the white characters and the black characters and the older characters. They all used '60s words, but I don't remember any specifics. Motormouth Maybelle talked with a funky, hip vocabulary and made you think what she was saying was important. The gym teacher had a husky voice for a woman. She was a weird character. Definitely has lesbian tendencies and she kept saying she was so alone!

This had AWESOME music in it! My favorite song above all is "Mama, I'm A Big Girl Now" but I also love "Good Morning, Baltimore" and "I Can Hear The Bells". There is about 17 songs in Hairspray, and they're all very good. The music was used to express anger and love and was used between characters, almost like they were having a conversation through the words in the music.

The audience consisted a lot of people from the choirs that I came with. I take that back. The Neil Simon Theatre is large and has many seats available, but they're very small to squish into! There were a lot of people there but I was seated in the middle of people I knew from St. Charles High School choirs. From what I observed, people loved the musical. The best time to see if the show is being positively received is during intermission. You can see how many people are lined up at the merchandise counter, which was backed up very far during the intermission for Hairspray. Also, when you go to the bathrooms, and there is a huge line, it's always fun to talk about what you just saw a few minutes ago onstage. Everyone was buzzing with positivity. I had never seen a production of Hairspray before March 18th but it is now my second favorite musical I've ever seen. Wicked was the 2nd play in New York I got to see and my all-time favorite musical, but I didn't feel the girl who played Elphaba in New York City had a good singing voice AT ALL and I was disappointed in it because of her. Honestly, Wicked at the Fox was better because the singing was better. The thing I pay attention to the most is the singing because I am a singer, and Hairspray had excellent singers. Seriously, nobody had a bad voice. I loved the high energy of this musical. It was different from the other darker things I've seen like Rent, The Phantom of the Opera, and Wicked. It was nice to see something bright and happy. It made me feel bright and happy too!