Breaking: HAIRSPRAY Named as NBC's Next Live Musical!

You can't stop the beat - or NBC's exciting presentations of live musical broadcasts!

The Hollywood Reporter reports that HAIRSPRAY has been chosen as NBC's next live musical following the success of last month's THE WIZ LIVE!. For the fourth time in a row, the team of Craig Zadan and Neil Meron will executive produce the live broadcast.

The news was announced at today's Television Critics Association's winter press tour in Los Angeles. "That title seems really fun and I think it will be really great live," said NBC chairman Bob Greenblatt. He went on to caution that "The deal is still to be closed," and that a formal announcement will be out shortly.

In an interview with THR following December's broadcast of THE WIZ LIVE, Zadan and Meron shared their successful formula for producing live television musicals. "Since we changed the playing field for ourselves this year in the way we did everything - and the whole technique of doing the show is different - we set out on a path that has changed the way we do them," Zadan explained. "That's going to inform what the next show is going to be. We don't want to go back to the way we did Peter Pan or The Sound of Music; we want to keep moving forward."

Watch the official trailer for 2007's HAIRSPRAY below:

HAIRSPRAY features music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman and a book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, and is based on the 1988 John Waters film of the same name. The songs include 1960s-style dance music and "downtown" rhythm and blues.

The story is set in 1962 Baltimore, Maryland, and follows teenager Tracy Turnblad, whose dream is to dance on The Corny Collins Show, a local TV dance program. When Tracy wins a role on the show, she becomes a celebrity overnight, and launches a campaign to integrate the program.

The musical's original Broadway production opened on August 15, 2002. The show won eight Tony Awards, after receiving thirteen nominations. It ran for over 2,500 performances before closing in January, 2009. The show has also had national tours, a London West End production, and numerous foreign productions. The London production was nominated for a record-setting eleven Laurence Olivier Awards, winning for Best New Musical and in three other categories.

A big screen musical adaptation of the show hit theaters in 2007 from producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron and starred John Travolta, Nikki Blonsk, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Marsden, Christopher Walken, Amanda Bynes, Queen Latifah, Brittany Snow, Zac Efron, Elijah Kelley and Allison Janney.

Photo Credit: Linda Lenzi