The live television musical has evolved into a bicoastal enterprise. What started out, with 2013’s “The Sound of Music Live!,” in a lower Broadway rehearsal space in New York, has evolved into a full-blown production on the Universal Studios backlot in California for “Hairspray Live!” which premieres Wednesday at 8 p.m. on NBC.
There, production designers have recreated a Baltimore street as it might have looked in 1962, and rather than broadcast from the Grumman Studios in Bethpage, LI, (where the network’s previously live musicals have originated) the producers will take full advantage of the balmy December weather, staging 40 percent of the production outdoors.
Many of the backlot storefronts are named for people involved with the production. Greenblatt’s Crabs is a nod to NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt, who greenlit the four live musicals (they also include “Peter Pan Live!” and “The Wiz Live!”) we’ve seen so far. Meron’s Used Cars is named for co-executive producer Neil Meron. But the most meaningful storefront belongs to Divine Pet Food, with the cut-out of a pink flamingo perched on the awning.
It was female impersonator and notorious “Pink Flamingo” star Divine, of course, who first played housewife Edna Turnblad in the very first “Hairspray,” the subversively campy 1988 John Waters film that told the story of how an outsider named Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) integrates an “American Bandstand”-style show called “The Corny Collins Show” so black and white teens could dance together. Costumed like a cross between Totie Fields and Dame Edna Everage, Divine’s spiritual son, Harvey Fierstein, plays Edna on “Hairspray Live!” which documents his 2003 Tony-winning performance in the Broadway musical based on the Waters film.
“Harvey’s performance demanded to be preserved,” says Meron. “He was so brilliant. We’re so glad to be able to do this for him.”
Native New Yorker Fierstein is surrounded by talent culled from the Broadway stage (Kristin Chenoweth), the pop music charts (Ariana Grande), as well as the TV shows “American Idol” (Jennifer Hudson) and “Dancing With the Stars” (Derek Hough).
For Chenoweth, who plays Velma von Tussle, mother of teenaged TV star Amber von Tussle (Dove Cameron), working with Fierstein takes her back to her very first days in New York.
“He said, ‘You have to sing with me at the Gay Men’s Chorus,’” she says. “That was probably 20 years ago. I think we sang ‘Do You Love Me?’ He was a godfather to me and I’m just one of many.”
Derek Hough, who plays Corny Collins, joined the cast after hearing positive reports about working on “Grease Live!” from his sister, Julianne, who played Sandy. A dancer since age 10, Hough had special panels called gussets sewn into his suits to allow for greater movement in the armpits and the crotch. He also asked for a “wet dance towel” to be kept on the side of the stage to dampen the soles of his shoes. “I step on that towel before I go on stage. It gives me greater traction,” he says.
Educating the cast, most of which was born well after the racially charged 1960s, became the job of co-director Kenny Leon, who directed a production of “A Raisin in the Sun” for ABC in 2008.
“As a company, we watched a video about that time where white dancers were doing the Twist and the Watusi and the Shoefly,” Hough says. “And they were saying they stole them from the black community, danced them on TV and got the credit for it,” Hough says.
Leon is sharing directing duties with Alex Rudzinski, who won an Emmy this year for helming “Grease Live!” for Fox. “We hire the talent and I oversee the design,” Leon says. Alex is experimenting with 13 cameras. These new musicals need both of us.”
In addition to the backlot, “Hairspray Live!” is also using two soundstages at Universal. How will the principals get from one place to another? “Golf carts,” he says. “Some people will run. We ran through the production yesterday. We had four seconds to spare.”
In many ways, Leon’s biggest responsibility will be to guide newcomer, 20-year-old Maddie Baillio, who won the part of Tracy Turnblad at an open-call audition, through the show. “I can’t imagine being her age and stepping out here on a project like this,” he says. “I try to give her the confidence and support.”
“The first day of table read, we’re stumbling through our lines,” Hough says, “but Maddie was in full performance mode from day one.”
“She is going to kill it,” says Chenoweth. “Her voice is fantastic.”
Though Meron and Zadan are old pros at staging Broadway musicals, turning them into movies (“Chicago,” 2007’s “Hairspray“) and now into TV events, mounting “Hairspray” had enough challenges to make sure they are never bored. “We haven’t done a show with as many dances as this one,” says Meron. “And as many scene changes. We’ve been wrestling the beast. It could be quite exciting on Dec. 7.”