Special Interview: High Hair and High Hopes- Kristin Chenoweth and Bob Greenblatt Talk HAIRSPRAY LIVE!

After three smash years of live musicals which included visits to the lush hillsides of Austria, a technicolor adventure in Neverland, and a wildly wonderful visit to the land of Oz, NBC Chairman Bob Greenblatt and his team have proven themselves trailblazers of the modern age of live televised musicals.

This week, viewers are looking forward to another musical theatre treat as the team prepares to bring us to 1960's Baltimore to meet Tracy Turnblad, a teen whose enthusiasm, passion, and talent defy the odds and break barriers of conformity and race, with their take on the 2003 Tony Award- winning musical, "Hairspray."

With an all-star cast featuring fresh-face Maddie Baillio as Tracy Turnblad, Harvey Fierstein as Edna Turnblad, Jennifer Hudson as Motormouth Maybelle, Martin Short as Wilbur Turnblad, Derek Hough as Corny Collins, Ariana Grande as Penny Pingleton, Andrea Martin as Prudy Pingleton and Kristin Chenoweth as Velma Von Tussle. "Hairspray" is shaping up to be NBC's most high-profile live project to date.

But before they officially welcome us to the 60's, Greenblatt and one of the show's stars, Tony and Emmy award winner, Kristin Chenoweth, sat down with Broadway World to discuss the forthcoming production, adventures in baton twirling, the learning curve of televised musicals, and the high hair and high hopes for their latest live adventure.

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Kristin, you have been making something of a crossover to the dark side lately, first playing Maleficent in Disney's "Descendants" and now Velma von Tussle in "Hairspray". Are you having a good time being the bad guy lately?

Bob: She is a great villain. And I have to say, Galinda was a bit of a bad girl too, right?

Kristin: Thank you, Bob! Yes, I like to think that Galinda she had the biggest growth in terms of what made her good. But I think one of the tricks to this part that I am enjoying and being challenged and having fun with is [the question of] what does she love about herself? Velma is living in the past. One of the lines she says is that she may have to fill the role of Ms. Baltimore Crabs herself because everyone else has gone to pot. And I think that that's the character right there. I like to think of her as an ex-beauty queen still thinking she's got it. Still thinking that she could still compete in Miss Baltimore Crabs, and possibly win, and she is living vicariously through her daughter. This has been a fun part. I love her. And if I love her, then hopefully people will love to hate her.

There have been more than a few notable ladies who have taken on this role up until this point. What have you done to put the Kristin Chenoweth stamp on Velma and truly make it your own?

Kristin: Well, I've been very lucky because when we recorded the cast album a few months ago, I worked with Marc Shaiman on maybe what I could add to it vocally and otherwise. I am doing an E flat, and that'll be in there several times.

Bob: I think vocally I've never heard Velma sing this range. I mean, she goes all the way up the scale and it's really, really fun.

Kristin: And Velma, in her talent, twirls fire. I'm not going that far, but I will say that I did rehearse with a baton and there is a performance with a baton. And I think she still wishes she still had the splits and you may or may not see that. So there will be baton twirling and possibly some splits.

I did read about the baton training. Have you ever had to do that kind of advanced physical prep for a role or is this a new frontier?

Bob: You twirled a baton back in Oklahoma, didn't you?

Kristin: (laughs) I twirled, okay? I did, I twirled! I quit when I was twelve though! So, when they called me and asked me to do the part, I immediately knew that I did want to twirl fire. I didn't know if we could do that live, I didn't even broach it. But I will say that I did get my baton and I did start practicing immediately. I didn't even know if we could have it.

Luckily Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman did work with me on my own range and version of the song ["(The Legend Of) Miss Baltimore Crabs"]. There's an allegato in it and I definitely did what I could to try to make it my own.

Bob: And she is the funniest Velma you'll ever see.

Kristin: And the wig definitely helps the character. We have a saying in the South, "the higher the hair, the closer to heaven." Velma is with Jesus. That's all I'm gonna say.

Bob, this is now NBC's fourth televised musical and you've spoken previously about endless learning curve of producing these live events. Having now acquired three years of wisdom, how will we see those lessons applied in "Hairspray"?

Bob: We keep learning with each one in terms of what will really manifest itself on the screen. And we learned how to make these things run more efficiently and smarter behind the scenes to take this enormous production and make it doable, because logistically these musicals are an enormous undertaking. So, we learned a lot that you're not going to see, but I also think we've learned how to open these things up.

One of the things we learned, and I think it was a little more difficult to go there, but we've learned that we can break the fourth wall, which initially we didn't want to do. We wanted to make these musicals little, perfect movies that were for the camera, and not show the flaws or the backstage. But as we've gone on we've shown more and more of the behind the scenes and in this show you're going to see stuff going on backstage, have the camera turn around and show you where the audience is, and show you things that really do kind of break the illusion of what it is. And I think the audience really loves that because it is the sort of live high-wire act that we're walking. And it's really fun to be able to do that.

A lot of this show is going to be done outside on our back lot. We've not gone outside of the sound stage until this show and I think it lends itself well to "Hairspray" because some of the stuff is written to be outside. So we will be out of doors, and we've incorporated an audience to this show which we haven't done in the past. You're going to hear them and, in some cases, see them as part of the show, because part of the story is a live TV show. So, we've learned a lot and each show requires different things and we're just going bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

NBC is already gearing up for next year. You have "Bye, Bye Birdie" with Jennifer Lopez and the first live-televised drama with Aaron Sorkin's, "A Few Good Men" in the works. Is there anything you can reveal in terms of what's coming next?

Bob: We do plan to do "Birdie" next December and we are working on "A Few Good Men" so those are in the works, but we are all hands on deck for "Hairspray" for the next seven days. But it's exciting that it's now become a thing for us and a tradition, and now some of the other networks are putting their toe in the water also. So, I love that we're bringing more and more musicals to a huge audience that may or may not go to New York to see a show. The good news is we see touring productions in all of our cities, but I think this gets such a big audience.

We did some math with the, "The Sound of Music"audience, which ultimately had 19.3 million viewers. If you sold out a 1400-seat Broadway house, it would take 39 years of equivalent sell-outs on Broadway to get the 19 million people that we got. So, in one fowl swoop, you're getting all these people that might not ever see a Broadway show. I love that we're reaching kids. We love to do these shows for kids and kids that are in high school. When I was a kid growing up in Illinois, I used to get cast albums. Which of course dates me, right?

Kristin: No! I lived for them!

Bob: You couldn't even see what the shows looked like. We didn't have the internet, we couldn't see clips of anything. You would just imagine what the show looked like. If you were lucky enough to see the Tony Awards every year, you'd see snippets. But to me this is kind of like the new cast album. You get to see a show and then hopefully you'll go to New York and see more shows.

Kristin: And I can't play Velma for 39 more years so I'm really glad that this is a one-shot deal right here.