“Hairspray” is a big production. Since its 2002 Broadway debut, the stage adaptation of John Waters’ 1988 cult classic film has showcased big hair and big musical numbers, drawn big audiences and won big awards, all while dealing with big subjects and conveying an even bigger message.
The touring version of the musical, coming to Boston’s Citi Performing Arts Center Wang Theatre tomorrow, features two dynamic black lead actors: Donell James Foreman, starring in his first major production in the role of Seaweed J. Stubbs, and Angela Birchett, playing Motormouth Maybelle, whose first stint on a touring show came as a teenager.
Both performers grew up singing before moving to the stage in junior high school. Long before ever starring in a Broadway production, Foreman was spending time in the audience in New York City. The Albany native took regular trips to the city with his mother, herself a theater enthusiast.
By the time he completed his first play in seventh grade, Foreman had chosen his career path.
“Once I started [acting], it was all I wanted to do,” he said.
Many roles later, Foreman moved to New York to pursue acting full-time. Now 20 years old, he is working on a bachelor’s degree in musical theater at Pace University. His first stab at “Hairspray” came last summer, when he performed in a production of it at the Weston Playhouse in Vermont.
Detroit native Birchett also knew acting was for her at a young age.
“Theater was something I stumbled into as a teen,” Birchett said. “I’ve done it ever since, whenever I could.”
After getting bitten by the acting bug, Birchett went on to earn a degree in music education from Kentucky State University and star in numerous productions. She says her favorite roles include Effie White in “Dreamgirls,” the role popularized by Jennifer Hudson in the 2006 film version of the musical, and Asaka in “Once on This Island,” a Caribbean recasting of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale that inspired the 1989 Disney animated film “The Little Mermaid.”
“They are very different characters,” she said. “Both challenged me and stretched me to the very edge.”
In “Hairspray,” Birchett plays Motormouth Maybelle, the host of “Negro Day,” the only day each month that black dancers are allowed to appear on “The Corny Collins Show,” a local teenybopper dance program.
Set in 1962 Baltimore, the musical focuses on the efforts of plump teenager Tracy Turnblad to racially integrate the television program. Foreman plays Seaweed J. Stubbs, a dancer and Motormouth Maybelle’s son.
For Birchett, the best part of playing Motormouth Maybelle is how different the character is from her own life experience. She went home to Detroit and spent time at the Motown Historical Museum, among other places, to get a grasp on the role.
“She is an older woman,” Birchett said. “She required me to reach out and find things from a time I wasn’t around.”
Foreman, on the other hand, did not have to venture far to figure out Seaweed — he said they share some personality traits, and he enjoys playing the part.
“I love his energy, how positive he is,” Foreman said. “He sees people for who they are. He doesn’t judge them for how they look, which is a big thing in the show.”
For a two-hour musical, “Hairspray” tackles multiple major topics — “Racism, segregation, tolerance” — that are “still big issues today,” Birchett notes.
And with a John Waters comedy as the source material, some viewers occasionally find the method of tackling those issues a bit odd.
“Some of the jokes in ‘Hairspray’ can be so direct,” Birchett said. “They are jokes, but very real.”
But while audience members may be surprised to find such serious themes intertwined with all the big hairdos and upbeat musical numbers, Birchett believes it’s nearly impossible to miss the “huge message” by the time the curtain closes.
“If you walk out and don’t get it, you were either asleep or in the bathroom,” she said.
Birchett and Foreman love that the audience can both learn from the musical and also find some familiarity with at least one of its many colorful characters.
Birchett’s Motormouth Maybelle is a plus-size woman, a fact she proudly and confidently trumpets during the song “Big, Blonde and Beautiful.” Birchett says she consistently notices women in the crowd beaming after the song, and has picked up on more positive reactions following scenes where the musical’s black kids teach their white counterparts to dance.
“You see blacks in the audience smiling like, ‘That’s right,’” Birchett said. “Those scenes pull people in and make them feel like they are represented.”
“Hairspray” opens tomorrow and runs through Sunday at the Citi Performing Arts Center Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont Street, Boston. Tickets range from $32-$72. For show times and tickets, call 800-447-7400 or visit www.citicenter.org.
