Hancher ties in ‘Hairspray’ tour coming to Iowa City

Big hair, big heart, big dreams, big change. That’s “Hairspray” in a nutshell.

It’s all that, and so much more — including two cast members with Hancher ties. They’ll be returning to the University of Iowa’s premiere venue in Iowa City for four performances Feb. 23 to 25, 2024.

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Amy Rodriguez, 23, a 2021 UI graduate and former Hancher student stagehand, is the standby for the actor playing the show’s star, Tracy Turnblad, and will be stepping into that role for the Saturday night and Sunday matinee performances. Caroline Eiseman will portray Tracy in the other two local performances.

Rodriguez grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and since the tour doesn’t swing through Illinois, she’ll have lots of family and friends in the Iowa City audiences — including her sister, Grace, a current UI bio medical engineering major.

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Clinton native Sarah Hayes, 41, saw her first national touring show, “Rent,” at Hancher Auditorium. Now she’s headed to the new, post-flood Hancher in the role of Velma Von Tussle, whom she described as one of the show’s antagonists. She’s expecting a cheering section of family and friends, as well.

Both actors are loving seeing the country on their first national tour gig, and spoke with The Gazette in separate phone interviews from a recent stop in Bloomington, Ind.

Their characters are opposites who attract in very different ways.

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Welcome to the ’60s

It’s 1962 in Baltimore, and as the curtain rises, Tracy Turnblad is a 16-year-old with one goal in mind — to dance on “The Corny Collins Show.” She loves to dance, and being on this local show is the pinnacle prize, where the coolest kids get to dance all the newest moves to all the newest hits.

“She watches it religiously every day at 4 p.m.,” Rodriguez said.

But when Tracy is chosen to dance on the show, the bloom is quickly off the rose when she realizes her friend, Seaweed, who helped her prepare for her audition, can’t have the same opportunity because Black kids are only allowed to sing and dance on the show one day a month.

That realization is “a turning point” for Tracy.

“Her goal shifts into wanting to integrate her favorite television show,” Rodriguez said.

She has lots of stumbling blocks in her way — many of which come from Velma Von Tussle, producer of Collins’ show, and mother of Amber Von Tussle, described by the show’s licensing agent as “a prom queen nightmare.” Velma goes to great lengths to keep her stylish, popular daughter in the spotlight, and others out of it. MTI licensing describes Velma as “a carbon copy of Amber — just 20 years older and meaner.”

“There are some people who, as the world changes and forward-thinking happens, walk into the future with arms wide-open, ready to embrace any change that comes their way,” Hayes said.

“And then there are people who struggle with change, and have a hard time adjusting, and Velma is one you have to sort of drag kicking and screaming into the future. She is a powerful woman and afraid to lose that power. And so she tries to stop Tracy and tries to stop change, and stop the beat. And as everyone knows, you can’t stop the beat.”

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Messages

Change was — and is — inevitable and everyone is invited to join the journey that’s wrapped in dazzling song-and-dance numbers, glittering costumes and sky-high hairdos.

“I love the message that no one is beyond redemption, and no one is beyond change,” Hayes said. “I think that’s a good message for the world right now — that you can change — and I love that.”

Plenty of angst also is added to the bouncy beats. It’s not smooth sailing for Tracy, her family and friends. They all reside on the fringes of the norm and acceptability. Tracy isn’t as thin as some of her peers, but she dances onward and upward, undeterred.

“The beauty of Tracy is that I think she knows that she’s physically a little different, that maybe her attitudes are different than the other kids’. But I think at the end of the day, she doesn't understand why everybody doesn't see the world like she does,” said Rodriguez, who also played the role in a condensed version on a cruise ship through March 2023.

“And so I think just by being herself and being present on this TV show, she is able to change it, because her very first thing when she gets on the show, she’s asked, ‘What would you like to do?’ And she says, ‘I’d love to be the first woman president of the world.’ And then Corny Collins asks her, ‘Well, what would you do?’ (She replies) 'I’d make every day Negro Day.’ (That’s what the show calls the one day per month when Black kids are allowed onstage.)

“She’s not trying to get a reaction. She’s not just saying it to say it — she genuinely means that she genuinely wants her best friend, Seaweed, to be able to dance with her on TV.”

Rodriguez embraces Tracy wholeheartedly.

“I love her positivity, and I love her spirit,” she said. “I just really love that every time she walks into a room in this show, she is so excited to be there, and she’s so excited to get to know everybody. My favorite line in the show is before (the song) ‘Miss Baltimore Crabs,’ when she says, ‘Well, if you just put my 45 on, then I’ll show you my stuff.’

“Just thinking about showing people her stuff is the way that I really think about Tracy. She just wants to show everybody how she sees the world.”

Then and now

Both actors see parallels between the time in which the show is set, the time it premiered onstage and today, keeping in mind that the musical is based on John Waters’ cult-classic 1988 comedy that starred Ricki Lake, Divine, Sonny Bono, Jerry Stiller, Debbie Harry, Ric Ocasek, Pia Zadora and Ruth Brown.

The 2002 Tony-winning Broadway musical adaptation also danced onto the big screen in 2007, with several plot changes, starring Nikki Blonsky as Tracy, John Travolta as her mother, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Amanda Bynes, Queen Latifah, James Marsden, Zac Efron and Allison Janney. Those who have seen the movie then come to Hancher will notice those differences, but the core principles remain the same.

“I think it’s a really good reminder of where we have been, and also to hold up a lens and be like, this is what it was like in the 1960s. And then this (stage) version is what we thought about the 1960s in the early 2000s. And now it’s 2024. … So how does this resemble our world, and what changes can we make to be better now,” Rodriguez said.

Broadway director Jack O’Brien saw the current tour in Tulsa, Okla., and his words really stuck with Hayes, who also was thrilled to meet Linda Hart from the original Broadway cast that night.

“I’m paraphrasing, but (O’Brien said) this show is almost more relevant now than when it came out,” Hayes noted.

“So I hope that we can learn that we can change and we can all come together moving forward. I think people would agree that it’s a pretty divided world right now. A lot of people struggle to see through that, and I think ‘Hairspray’ gives us hope that it can be done.”

She hopes audience members can see the path to “a brighter future and feel that their voice can be heard. And smile and sing the whole time.”

Change also is happening for actors of varying body types through shows like this, where Tracy is a plus-size character.

“It’s an amazing opportunity to play a part like Tracy Turnblad, because she feels the way that I have felt at different points in my life,” Rodriguez said. “When I walk into a room, I look around and like, ‘Oh, there’s no way they’ll cast me for this, because I’m not size 2 and I’m not an itty-bitty princess-looking whatever.’ I feel like Tracy helps redefine that. I think the theater world is hopefully continuing to change, where a princess body type is any body type.

“It’s really fun to play a part like Tracy because obviously, Tracy knows that she is short and she is stout, as she says in the show. But she doesn’t consider herself to be a good dancer despite these things, or a good dancer for somebody that is a little bit larger or curvier. She just says, ‘I’m a good dancer, and I should be on that show, and I am a great friend that should be on that show.’ She doesn’t apologize for the way that she looks.”

The tour currently runs through June, after which the actors will be looking for their next roles.

“I’m really hoping to do shows after this that aren’t about what my body looks like,” Rodriguez said. “Where it’s just like, ‘Yeah, that’s just what this person looks like onstage.’ ”

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