HAIRSPRAY to Close Fine Arts Center’s Theatre Company Season

The Fine Arts Center's Theatre Company will present Hairspray, based on the John Waters' 1988 film, May 10 – June 3.

The 50's are out … and change is in the air in this 2003 Tony-Award winning musical which has been delighting audiences across the country. Loveable plus-size heroine, Tracy Turnblad, has a passion for dancing, and wins a spot on the local TV dance program, "The Corny Collins Show." Overnight she finds herself transformed from outsider to teen celebrity. Can a larger-than-life adolescent manage to vanquish the program's reigning princess, racially integrate the television show, and find true love (singing and dancing all the while, of course!) without mussing her hair?

"Bright, brassy, campy, touching and hysterical ... those are just some of the adjectives that describe our upcoming production of Hairspray," said Scott RC Levy, FAC's Director of Performing Arts and Producing Artistic Director and the show's director. "The score is infectious, the early 1960's look is sublime, and the script is ridiculously funny. You don't want to miss this high-energy musical comedy."

The 24-actor ensemble includes Drew Frady (Edna Turnblad), Andrea Rutherfold (Tracy Turnblad), Carmen Vreeman (Penny Pingleton), Lacey Connell (Amber Von Tussle), Marco Robinson (Link Larkin), Max Ferguson (Corny Collins), Michael Augenstein Wilbur Turnblad), Lynne Hastings (Motomouth Maybelle), Jen Lennon (Prudy Pingleton), and Allannah Moore (Velma Von Tussle).

Frady was featured in both Assassins, the Gazette's 2012 "Best in the Springs" award winner for Best Musical, and A Year with Frog and Toad (Frady portrayed Toad). Robinson recently appeared at the FAC in Of Mice and Men and Assassins and previously performed in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Sweeney Todd, the Gazette's Best Musicals in 2011 and 2010. Rutherford, a Colorado native, makes her FAC debut after living and working in New York City for the past seven years. Vreeman is one of five Youth Rep alums – the FAC's theatre training program – in the cast.

The creative team includes Lex Liang (Scenic, Costume and Wig Design), Jonathan Spencer (Lighting Design), Victor Ayers (Choreography), Roberta Jacyshyn (Musical Direction).

Liang made his FAC debut for A Year with Frog and Toad. Liang has served as a principle event designer for the Central Park Conservancy and a consultant to Disney's Entertainment Costuming and several productions on and off Broadway. Spencer did the lighting design for the FAC production of Assassins and has several recent Broadway credits as the Assistant Lighting Designer for A Streetcar Named Desire, Sister Act, Irving Berlin's White Christmas, Finian's Rainbow and Legally Blonde. Ayers is working on his first production for the FAC. He studied as a youngster with the Colorado Jazz Dance Company and is another Youth Rep veteran. He spent 13 months performing in Hairspray on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship.

Jacyshyn leads the eight-member orchestra and has conducted numerous FAC musicals, including The Producers, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Assassins, and Crazy for You, earning a Denver Post "Ovation Award" for her efforts on Sweeney Todd, as the top musical director in the state in 2009.

Hairspray is sponsored by El Pomar Foundation (FAC Annual Sponsor), Colorado Springs Independent, KKTV, KLITE, KCME, the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado and members of the Fine Arts Center.

More information concerning individual tickets, discounted group sales, and the Curtain Call Society can be found at csfineartscenter.org or by calling the FAC Box Office at 719.634.5583.

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