Interview: Ella Ruth Francis of HAIRSPRAY at San Francisco Playhouse

Summer in San Francisco means one thing to Bay Area theatergoers – it’s time to head to San Francisco Playhouse to catch a classic musical. The venerable company has a tradition of programming an extended run of a show guaranteed to lift audiences out of the doldrums of Karl the Fog, and this year’s selection is pretty much guaranteed to do just that. Hairspray may address serious issues like racism, sizeism and gender non-conformity, but it delivers its message via up-tempo toe-tappers and good cheer rather than by treatise. It’s got a killer score that culminates in a finale that literally explodes with joy, the infectious “You Can’t Stop the Beat.” No wonder the Broadway production garnered 8 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and was adapted into wildly successful film and live TV renditions.

Set in 1962, Hairspray follows Baltimore teen Tracy Turnblad, she of the bouffant hairdo, small stature, big voice and indomitable spirit. Tracy dreams of dancing on her favorite TV show and when her wish comes true, she doesn’t stop there. Instead, she continues to shake up the system, using her platform to confront racial segregation and inspire a movement that changes the face of television forever. SF Playhouse’s Tracy will be played by San Francisco native Ella Ruth Francis, who would seem to be born to play the role.

I caught up with Francis by phone last week and discovered that she is every bit as bubbly and determined as the character she portrays. She told me the show has loomed in her consciousness since early childhood, even though a hurtful experience auditioning for an earlier production of Hairspray made her put it on the back burner for a while. We talked about her version of the character and what her favorite song is in a score chockfull of bangers. We also chatted about her earliest exposure to musical theater and the education she received at San Francisco’s School of the Arts and the Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts in Santa Maria. When I asked if she had any dream roles, let’s just say that, once again just like Tracy, Ellis is a young woman with a plan. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What was your initial exposure to Hairspray? How did it first come into your life?

Well, funnily enough, my parents have a signed poster of the original production that has hung in our dining room basically my whole life. So it’s always kind of been this looming presence in the home that I am now back staying in during the run. But the first version I saw was the original John Waters film, and then the movie musical when it came out in 2007. Doing musical theater as a kid, we always would sing “You Can’t Stop the Beat” as like the finale of a concert. But I’ve never actually seen it live onstage.

Is Tracy a role you’ve always wanted to play?

Honestly, no. In fact, I actually had an aversion to it for a couple years. When I was about 22 or 23, I auditioned for Hairspray and had a casting director look me in the eye and tell me that I was not fat enough to play Tracy but too fat to play Penny, so he didn’t know what to do with me. So that kind of put me off of the show for a while, which of course is not the show’s fault at all. It was just this one awful person, but it kind of made me avoid auditioning for it for a while. It wasn’t really until a friend of mine told me to audition for this production that I got back into it. And I’m so grateful, because it’s such a joyful show, and so much more affirming than that experience.

How would you describe your Tracy? Who is she?

Tracy is just so positive and so earnest, but I think my Tracy is not quite as naïve as the world says she is. She understands what’s happening, but instead of having it be something that bogs her down, it’s something that she then feels empowered to engage with. So she is maybe a little more clear-eyed, as opposed to starry-eyed. The wonderful thing about Tracy is she starts the show saying all these things - “I want to be famous, I want to be on TV. I want to be with Link Larkin” - and really makes them come true through her own actions and ambitions, and in the way that she treats the people around her.

Hairspray has such a great score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. What’s currently your favorite song?

I have two answers. My favorite song to perform is “I Can Hear the Bells.” It’s just so wonderful, and it’s so fun to sing, I vocally enjoy it and also just love the emotional journey of that song. It’s so introspective and lovely, and it is kind of the first time that Tracy acknowledges that the world doesn’t appreciate her positivity, with lines like “Everybody says that he won’t like what he’ll see.” Cause she hasn’t really acknowledged that anyone might feel about her differently than she feels about herself. And it’s the first time that when in the room with Corny Collins and faced with Link Larkin she really has to take a minute and go, “Oh, there might be pushback to this. But I believe in it so much and I really think that he’s gonna feel the way I feel, and I know what I want from this moment.”

My favorite song that I get to watch is “Miss Baltimore Crabs” because it is just so fun. When you see Alison Ewing, our wonderful Velma, perform it, it almost justifies how awful she is to me because she is just so fabulous in the number. Alison is a delight onstage and off, but really, the way that she comes on and just holds the stage... Last night, I got to see it for the first time really full out at the stumble through, and I thought, “Oh, I can’t wait to watch this eight times a week!”

You are a San Francisco native, correct?

Indeed, I am! I’m on the phone to you from my childhood bedroom. [laughs]

Nothing the least bit weird about that, I’m sure. [laughs]

Not at all!

When did you first realize you might be a theater kid?

Oh, there was no moment, it was just kind of always there. I mean, two of my parents were dancers  – cause I’ve got four of ‘em, I’ve got lesbian moms and gay dads - so being surrounded by so many queer people there was always a theater person in the vicinity, like a stone’s throw away since birth. My parents took me to a lot of theater, ballet and music recitals, to so many things. The first musical I ever saw I think I was 5 or 6 and they took me to see The Fantasticks and I cried at intermission because I thought it was over. And then I just said, “Oh, well, I’m going to be an actor. I want to do that.” Similar to Tracy, I’ve kind of known what I wanted from a young age, and there’s never been a moment in my life where I’ve thought maybe I should do something else.

What roles did you play in your high school musicals?

I went to the School of the Arts School in San Francisco, and had a great time there, but I was never the lead in anything. I used to joke that because I had hips (I was a curvier kid and I still am today), I only played the sluts and the mothers. So I was Ethel Toffelmier in The Music Man and Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music. And then we did a Christmas show and I was like a sexy gingerbread cookie. [laughs] But I never really was “the lead” in any of my high school musicals, which is kind of funny looking back, because then when I started to lead more shows I was like “Oh, that’s hard!”

Yeah, leading a show is really hard work, isn’t it?

It is difficult! I did a lot of Shakespeare in high school. I worked for a long time with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, through their camp system and then eventually became a resident artist with them as an adult. I was actually doing more leads in Shakespeare than I was in musicals, and so for a while I thought musicals might just be something I loved but didn’t necessarily do.

You’re an alum of the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts [PCPA]. What did that kind of training give you?

Oh, wow, it gave me a lot. First of all, when you’re in that environment where you’re training and also often working in the repertory company, the work ethic you are given is really unparalleled. So even though we’re in a hard part of Hairspray rehearsals right now, it doesn’t feel like I’m in over my head. Because I’ve done harder. I’ve been in class at 6 AM and then gone straight into a show at night, you know?

And then also from PCPA, just the community that I gained there. Trevor March, who’s playing Link in this show, was in my class and became my best friend in college and now we’re getting to reunite over ten years later to do Hairspray together. I met my fiancé in my class, even though we didn’t date until after we graduated and played Romeo and Juliet. We get married next year, and one of our friends who also was in that class is officiating our wedding. So the community of people that I found at PCPA who’ve stayed in my life for so long, and we’ve continued to create theater together and engage in each others’ lives and support each other, that has really been one of the biggest gifts of that whole experience.

You’re currently New York-based. How is that going?

I always knew I was going to live in New York, so the good news is I love living there and there’s a lot of it that feels so right and so wonderful. It is a hard city and it also is rewarding. Like the highs are high and the lows are low, but it’s all just kind of thrilling cause it’s happening often at the same time. I’ve been there for about three years and I’ve had some really wonderful experiences and got to work on some really great projects – and I’ve also had long stretches of doing service jobs and hearing nothing.

I love New York, but I’m thrilled, let’s be clear, to miss New York summer, which is awful, disgusting. Being from San Francisco, heat and humidity are not words in my vocabulary! So I’m grateful for a little time away and really excited to go back in September when it starts to chill out.

Since you said that Tracy wasn’t really one of your dream roles, can you name a few that are?

Oh, yeah! I would love to play Dot in Sunday in the Park with George. What a brilliant show. And – omigoodness, what a can of worms you’ve opened – I would really love to go back to my Shakespeare roots. I would actually love to play Henry V, which is such a deep cut, but I’d love to do some of the histories and get weird and messy, do some fun Shakespeare stuff.

And – you know I was talking to Trevor March about this yesterday - he and I when we’re a little older would love to do Sweeney Todd together. So wait another 10 years and we’ll do Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett. [laughs] Oh, and there’s one more show which I want to age through. I already mentioned A Little Night Music, because I adore it, but I want to play Petra now and then talk to me in ten years and I’ll play the Countess and then I’ll do Desirée, and then I’ll go back to Madame Armfeldt. If that’s my career, I’m happy!

(all photos by Jessica Palopoli)

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