PHOTO CALL: The Original Tracy Turnblad | Playbill

Related Articles
News PHOTO CALL: The Original Tracy Turnblad
//assets.playbill.com/editorial/7573b84755e8a74b25c1a80259225297-ne_112106.jpg

Photo by Aubrey Reuben

Ricki Lake was the first girl to play Tracy Turnblad, which she did in the original John Waters film "Hairspray." Aug. 15, the talk show hostess attended the opening night performance of the new hit musical comedy Hairspray at Broadway's Neil Simon Theatre.

Hairspray, which, in Waters' film form, starred Lake, Sonny Bono and Waters perennial Divine, is set in 1962 Baltimore, where the girl with the biggest hair and the best moves can obtain fame on the city's number one dance revue, "The Corny Collins Show." When lovable, chubby Tracy Turnblad (Marissa Jaret Winokur) defeats the show's reigning queen, Amber Von Tussle (Lara Bell Bundy), the girl's evil, bigoted mother (Linda Hart), a former beauty queen, wants revenge. Turnblad's own parents (Harvey Fierstein as Edna and Dick Latessa as Wilbur), however, are there to make sure Tracy stays on top. In the course of her rise, Tracy falls for, wins and then loses the handsomest boy (Matthew Morrison) on "Corny Collins. She even winds up in jail where she learns love and integration are worth the fight.

View the next photo

— By Christine Ehren

 
RELATED:
Today’s Most Popular News:
 X

Blocking belongs
on the stage,
not on websites.

Our website is made possible by
displaying online advertisements to our visitors.

Please consider supporting us by
whitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.
Thank you!