Hairspray Dance Contest Winner Makes Bway Debut 2/24

The producers of Hairspray, winner of eight 2003 Tony Awards including best musical, have announced that Leslie Goshko of Tulsa, Oklahoma, winner of the Hairspray 'Big Bopper Dance Topper' dance contest, which is presented by Ladies Home Journal and its website LHJ.com, will make her Broadway debut, performing with the company, on Saturday, February 24, at 8pm.

Goshko won the prize—a trip to New York and a chance to rehearse and perform with the cast and company of Hairspray—after she was selected by an internet voting process that spanned several months and several steps.  As part of the process, critiques by Hairspray's Diana DeGarmo, Haylie Duff, and Marc Shaiman were posted on the Hairspray website at www.hairspraythemusical.com/dance.

 Goshko arrives in New York on Thursday, February 22 to meet with Hairspray staff, get fitted for costume and wig, and rehearse her appearance in the show that Saturday night.  She is a recent college graduate with a degree in drama/television/film performance who acted in college.  She worked for an improv studio during senior year of college and did some open mic stand-up.  Upon graduation, Goshko performed in an east coast children's theatre and then returned to Tulsa where she has been active in theatre ever since.  She has studied dance on and off since childhood, including ballet and tap, but she also loves hip hop, swing, and "basically anything else you can throw at me."

In Hairspray, "it's 1962—the '50s are out and change is in the air. Baltimore's Tracy Turnblad, a big girl with big hair and an even bigger heart, has only one passion—to dance. She wins a spot on the local TV dance program, "The Corny Collins Show" and, overnight, is transformed from outsider to irrepressible teen celebrity. But can a plus-size trendsetter in dance and fashion vanquish the program's reigning princess, win the heart of heartthrob Link Larkin, and integrate a television show without denting her 'do?," as the show is described in press materials.

Hairspray is based on the New Line Cinema film written and directed by John Waters, who serves as a creative consultant on the musical comedy.

The show, which celebrated its fourth anniversary on Broadway in August 2006, is the winner of eight 2003 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Actor (Harvey Fierstein), Best Actress (Marisa Jaret Winokur), Best Featured Actor (Dick Latessa), Best Score (Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman), Best Book (Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan), Best Director (Jack O'Brien), and Best Costume Design (William Ivey Long). Hairspray also swept every one of the year's best musical awards, winning, in addition to the Tony, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, and the Drama League Award.

For more information about Hairspray, please visit the Hairspray website at www.hairsprayonbroadway.com.

Photo of Hairspray dance contest judge Diana DeGarmo by Ben Strothmann