Hairspray Concert - Baltimore

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 1/27/13 at 7:35am

When I heard that a concert version of Hairspray would be performed in Baltimore, I had no doubt that I would get tickets, since Baltimore is a short train ride from DC. It also gave me another opportunity to see Marissa Perry as Tracy. I saw her 2nd performance as Tracy when she first joined the Broadway cast as the standby. I was also looking forward to hearing the score live since its closing performance 4 years ago.

John Waters served as the narrator and was quite wonderful.

To start off with, most of the principal cast were enjoyable. Why Beth Leavel never played Velma Von Tussle on Broadway is beyond me. She was perfect, and I liked her better than any of the previous Velma's I had seen on Broadway. I have seen Beth in most of the Broadway shows she has been in since the original production of 42nd Street in the 80s. She understands comedy. Nick Adams was also very good as Link. Seaweed as played by Marcus Terell was fantastic!! His voice was out of this world and he was quite the cutie to boot. Alix Korey's female authority figure was very funny in the few bits she was given. NaTasha Yvette Williams sang a very powerful and moving rendition of, "I Know Where I've Been." Paul Vogt was very good as Edna (saw him on Broadway). Mickey Dolenz (of the Monkees) was just kind of odd as Wilbur. Just can't put my finger on it. Julie Kavanagh's Penny was good, but definitely not one of my favorites in comparison to others I've seen in the role.

On a side note, I really liked the costume designs by Clare Henkel.

The odd thing is the afternoon's proceedings left me kind of "eh". For some reason it all didn't add up for me. The ensemble was filled out by students from the Baltimore School for the Arts. My biggest issue was the sound. From what I could tell, there was a chorus of 25+ students in back of the orchestra on stage. Although there were microphones in front of them, you couldn't hear them. I'm not sure if that was because where I was sitting (10th row orchestra). All the principals had body mics. But with that many people on stage, you'd think their voices would "pop". The orchestra sounded fantastic, but I think they might have overpowered the voices of the young ensemble. The "New Kids in Town" and Seaweed's friends were also made up from students. Some of them had nice presence, especially the girl who played Brenda.

John Waters was very funny as the narrator and gave some background of his inspirations when originally writing Hairspray.

The book scenes were quite choppy as a lot was edited out of them. I realize this was a concert version, but I wonder if it would have worked better with John Waters just setting up the scene for the song (which he did), as opposed to trying to do some of the book scenes.

Ironically this is the first time in 9+ years that I've paid a visit to Baltimore, having seen the original tour of Hairspray during its opening engagement in this city. To date, Carly Jibson remains my favorite Tracy. I loved her rendition of Good Morning Baltimore.

The audience was another story. As enthusiastic as they were; goodness gracious!!!! A family 3 rows behind me had an infant in tow. I will say the extremely young child made noises throughout the first act, but was quiet during act 2 (they didn't leave during intermission). The mother/daughter team next to me, texted throughout Act 1. I moved to a different seat for Act 2 as I found their behavior quite rude and annoying.

Part of me enjoyed it, but there was a greater part of me that wish I had stayed home and had the final Broadway performance as a lasting memory of one of my favorite shows.

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 1/27/13 at 8:09am

I saw "Hairspray" several years ago on Broadway and really had a great time. That being said, I don't know if I would have gone to a "concert" of the show. Sorry about the audience, unfortunately this type of thing happens fairly often.