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AUDIENCE GUIDE 2018 - 2019 | Our 59th Season | Issue 2 Issue | Season 59th Our 2019 | November 16 - December 30, 2018 Music by Marc Shaiman Lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman Book by Thomas Meehan and Mark O’Donnell IN THIS ISSUE Authors and composer Hairspray is a bold, beloved blockbuster dancer on The Corny Collins Show, a John Waters musical with depth and heart. It takes on local TV dance show similar to Synopsis important community issues with wit, a American Bandstand. great score, a diverse cast and high- She uses her newfound power to energy dancing. It addresses the need integrate the TV network and win the for racial harmony while making a affection of the town’s heartthrob. strong case against bullying. It also Hairspray reminds us of the importance offers a positive message about being of individuality and the acceptance of yourself and owning the talents you one another: a timely thought to share possess. today. Hairspray is based on the 1988 movie Hairspray is a story full of youthful created by legendary, underground film- enthusiasm and optimism that change is maker John Waters, who called it “a possible and that there is brighter future comedy about integration.” The for everyone. At the heart of this Broadway adaptation won eight Tony hilarious, yet socially important show is Awards in 2003, including Best Musical. an ensemble of teenagers. Skylight is It features music by Marc Shaiman, who proud to present 17 area junior high and also wrote lyrics with Scott Wittman, high school students performing in our with a book by Mark O’Donnell and production. Thomas Meehan. Everything about Hairspray will make Hairspray is set in Baltimore in 1962. It you smile. It has a heart of gold, with its is the story of plus-size teen Tracy message of acceptance, understanding Turnblad, who wrestles with body image and being kind to one another. issues and bullying, then undergoes a transformation from social outcast to Enjoy! sudden star when she becomes a This guide is available online at skylightmusictheatre.org Marc Shaiman: Music and Lyrics; Scott Wittman: Lyrics This production is generously Season Sponsors Scott Wittman Marc Shaiman was born in 1959 in Hairspray is just one of Scott Newark, New Jersey. When he was Wittman’s many successful efforts as only 16, he left school to pursue a a director, lyricist, and writer for career in New York. Shaiman began Broadway, concerts, and television. his professional career as Bette Midler’s vocal arranger, eventually Born in 1954 in Nanuet, New York, he becoming her musical director and co- got an early career start in New York producer of many of her recordings, City directing a show for a Greenwich including The Wind Beneath My Village club. He soon directed Wings and From a Distance. concerts for such artists as Bette He also worked on Saturday Night Midler, Christine Ebersole, Raquel Live as an arranger/writer and Welch, Dame Edna Everage and Lypsinka. portrayed Skip St. Thomas, the pianist for The Sweeney Sisters, played by Nora Dunn and Jan Hooks, which In addition to Hairspray, Wittman earned him an Emmy nomination. conceived, wrote lyrics for, and directed Martin Short: Fame Becomes Shaiman has worked on over 50 Me and conceived and directed movies including Broadcast Matters of the Heart, a solo concert by News, Beaches, When Harry Met Patti LuPone in 2000. Sally, City Slickers, The Addams Family, Sister Act, Sleepless in Research/Writing by Seattle , The First Wives Club and Shaiman and Wittman worked with Terrence McNally on Catch Me If You Justine Leonard for ENLIGHTEN, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Can, a musical adaptation of the Skylight Music Theatre’s Education Program Steven Spielberg film. The musical His work on Hairspray with Scott opened on Broadway in April 2011 Edited by Ray Jivoff Wittman earned the team a Tony [email protected] Award, a Drama Desk Award and a They also worked together on Charlie Grammy. They also collaborated on and the Chocolate Factory the Catch Me if You Can and the Musical, which premiered in London in television series, Smash. 2013. The show was reworked for a Broadway production in 2017. It ran In 2007 he was honored with almost nine months before closing in ASCAP’s Henry Mancini Award for January 2018. his outstanding contributions to the music of film and television. In 2013, Wittman and Shaiman co- wrote the score for Bombshell, a Shaiman married Lieutenant musical about Marilyn Monroe within Commander Louis Mirabal in 2016. the context of the NBC television show Smash. A soundtrack was They have homes in New York and 158 N. Broadway Los Angeles where he continues to released later that same year. His Milwaukee, WI 53202 write and compose. current project is the upcoming Mary (414) 291-7811 Poppins Returns, starring Emily Blunt and Lin Manuel-Miranda. www.skylightmusictheatre.org AUDIENCE GUIDE | HAIRSPRAY Book writers Thomas Meehan and Mark O’Donnell Thomas Meehan (1929-2017) was a key collaborator on some of the most memorable productions in recent Broadway history. Always a prolific writer, Meehan in his 70s wrote or co- wrote three shows that each ran over 2,000 performances on Broadway: Annie (1977), 2,377 performances; The Producers (2001) written with Mel Brooks, 2,502 performances and Hairspray (2002), written with Mark O'Donnell, running for 2,642 performances. Meehan won or shared Tony Awards for all three shows. Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan He wrote the books for other musicals shared the 2003 Musical and the including I Remember Mama (1979), Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ain’t Broadway Grand (1993), Bombay Meehan joined forces with Mel Brooks Book of a Musical for their work on Dreams (2004), with Meera Syal; to write the screenplay for 1983’s To Hairspray, and they wrote the 2007 Young Frankenstein (2007), again with Be or Not to Be, a remake of a 1942 film adaptation. The pair also worked Mel Brooks; Cry Baby (2008), an movie spoofing Nazi Germany. Four on another John Waters musical adaptation of the John Waters film with years later, they collaborated on adaptation, Cry-Baby, for which they Mark O'Donnell; Elf: The Musical Spaceballs (1987), a sendup of sci-fi received a 2008 Tony nomination. (2010), with Bob Martin; Limelight: The films. The pair made Broadway history Story of Charlie Chaplin (2012) and with the musical version of Brooks’ Born in Cleveland, Ohio, O’Donnell Rocky (2014) with Sylvester Stallone. 1967 film The Producers. The show received his BA from Harvard College opened in 2001 to sold-out houses, in 1976. He was a member of The Nice work for a kid from Ossining, New rave reviews and shattered Tony Harvard Lampoon, and was the writer York, where he was born in 1929. history when it won a record-setting 12 and librettist for three musicals for the Meehan graduated in 1951 from statues. (Even Hamilton fell one short Hasty Pudding Theatricals group at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., and of that accomplishment in 2016.) Harvard. then served as an Army intelligence Meehan and Brooks later adapted the officer for two years. He joined the musical into a film, thus transforming a His plays include That's It, Folks, staff of the New Yorker in the mid- movie into a stage play and back into Fables for Friends, The Nice and the 1950s where his work was noticed by a movie. Nasty, Strangers on Earth, Vertigo composer-director-producer Martin Park along with the book and lyrics for Charnin. It was the beginning of a life- In reaction to Meehan’s death in 2017, the musical Tots in Tinseltown. He and long friendship and creative Mel Brooks wrote on Twitter: "Stunned Bill Irwin wrote Scapin, a 1997 play partnership. by the news that my friend/co-writer adapted from the original by Molière. Tom Meehan has died. I’ll miss his In the mid-1960s, Meehan earned an sweetness & talent. We have all lost a His books include Elementary Emmy nomination for writing for That giant of the theatre." Was the Week That Was, a forerunner Education, Vertigo Park and Other Tall of today’s satirical TV programs about Tales, Getting Over Homer and Let Similar to Brooks, Hamilton creator Lin current events such as The Daily Nothing You Dismay. He contributed -Manuel Miranda released a statement Show. He won an Emmy in 1970, the to The New Yorker, The New York on Twitter stating: "RIP to Thomas co-writer of Annie: The Women in the Times, The Atlantic, Esquire and Spy. Meehan, one of the best around.” Life of a Man, a TV special that starred He was also a writer for the 1981-1982 actress Anne Bancroft, the wife of Mel season of Saturday Night Live. Brooks. O'Donnell was a longtime editorial advisor to the Yale Record and taught In 1972, Meehan, Martin Charnin and a popular comedy-writing seminar at composer Charles Strouse wrote Yale University. Annie, a musical adaptation of the comic strip Little Orphan Annie. The He died in 2012 after collapsing at his apartment in Manhattan. He was 58. show is now a classic. They all won Tony Awards for that show. 2018-2019 | SKYLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE John Waters – Creator of the Original Hairspray and his subject matter more shocking, John Waters Presents Movies That his audiences grew bigger. By the Will Corrupt You. early 1970s he was making features which he managed to get shown in Waters has continued to set all his midnight screenings in art cinemas. films in Baltimore, keeping true to his particular skewed vision and Success came with Pink Flamingos delighting audiences with his tales of (1972), a deliberate exercise in ultra- eccentric characters who revel in the bad taste.