For their next musical, NBC said: Let’s Dance. Tracy Turnblad is coming back to your screen this year, as Hairspray the next live musical in December.
According to Entertainment Weekly, John Waters’ Baltimore-set foray into musicals was optioned following the success of The Wiz last month. With Hairspray, the theme of racial integration continues, albeit through a somewhat different lens.
With two films and a live stage musical to work with, NBC network head Robert Greenblatt said he isn’t planning to follow the film versions to the letter. “I don’t think we’re going to try to replicate the movie. We want to do a new version of it,” he said.
The cast is still up in the air. We’ll be especially curious to see who plays Tracy Turnblad’s mother, given that the role was Divine’s final turn on film.
