On Wednesday, Dec. 7 NBC made its fourth entry in its made-for-TV musical telecasts with ‘Hairspray Live!’ The Live production was directed by Kenny Leon and Alex Rudzinski. They based it on the 2002 Broadway musical, which is based on the 1988 musical film directed and written by John Waters. ‘Hairspray’ also has a 2007 film version. NBC’s previous productions include ‘The Wiz Live!’, ‘Peter Pan Live!’, and ‘The Sound of Music Live!’ Fox then got into the trend this year with ‘Grease Live!’, ‘The Passion’, and ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’.

The musical takes place in 1962 Baltimore, Maryland featuring plump teenager Tracy Turnblad whose dream is to be a dancer on the local TV program, ‘The Corny Collins Show,’ which is based on the real-life ‘Buddy Deane Show’. (For those of you who don’t know what the ‘Buddy Deane Show’ is, it was a teen dance television show that ran from 1957 to 1964.) When Tracy gets a role on the show, overnight she becomes a local celebrity. As she meets an array of people, she starts a campaign to integrate the show.

The Live production starred Maddie Baillio as Tracy. Making her on-screen debut as the radical teenager, Baillio did a great job, but of course, she could not be compared to distinguished voices like that of Kristin Chenoweth as Velma Von Tussle, Jennifer Hudson as Motormouth Maybelle, and even Ariana Grande as the minor role Penny Pingleton. New York Times stated on Hudson’s performance “Only [she] found the real strength of this Tony Award-winning musical, delivering a knock-out rendition of ‘I Know Where I’ve Been.’”

Harvey Fierstein reprised his Tony Award-winning role of Edna Turnblad. UsWeekly stated that “it was no surprise that [he] brought a certain comfort and familiarity to the role.” Garrett Clayton and Derek Hough did solid performances of Link Larkin and Corny Collins. However, Clayton is no Zac Efron (who portrayed Link in the 2007 film version) and as UsWeekly also stated about his performance “assuming he doesn't play roles formerly played by the heartthrob indefinitely, he will go on to great things.”

Overall, the production was great. The only thing that did not seem to work was Darren Criss’ scripted interjections that would give the viewers a behind-the-scenes look. There were good intentions, but it disrupted the flow of the musical.

It’s always fun to revisit a beloved music and it’s always exciting to see how one recreates it.