Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, May 3-5, the Madrigals performed Hairspray for the Orange High School community.
The main cast members were Grace Huskins as Tracy Turnblad, Travis Holt as Link Larkin, Nicky Vassello as Edna Turnblad, Penny Pingleton as Sarah Tatum, Terrance Morrow as Seaweed J. Stubbs, and Mackenzie Turner as Amber Von Tussle. Jane Williams directed the show and there were many other great performers in the show.
The play was a very funny and well put on performance. There were two acts and they held a large sum of songs that were in the original play. The highlights of the first act included the lovable songs “Good Morning Baltimore,” “The Nicest Kids In Town,” “Mama, I’m A Big Girl Now,” “Run and Tell That,” and “Big, Blonde, and Beautiful.” There were many beautiful voices heard in the play and the audience could tell that the singers were gifted.
Mia Frenduto, the assistant technical director, said, “I thought the cast did a fantastic job and they pulled it off really well in the short amount of time that they had to work on it.” Caleb Gray, a member of the audience, said, “It was an excellent show that was well rehearsed and featured some of the best talent Orange has to offer.”
The second act contained songs like “The Big Dollhouse,” “You’re Timeless to Me,” and “You Can’t Stop the Beat.” There was a very exciting part at the end of “You Can’t Stop The Beat” where the audience was given the chance to stand up and dance. The second act also featured the songs “Without Love,” which was a love song that Holt sang to Huskins and Morrow also sang to Tatum. Also, another performance that was well received by the audience was “I Know Where I've Been.” This song was sung by Khadijah Johnson, and the crowd roared with approval.
Grace Huskins, who played Tracy Turnblad, the star of the show, commented, “It was awesome! It just keeps getting better and better every night.”
Out of all of the cast, though, Nicky Vassello got the most laughs. He played Edna Turnblad, keeping up the grand tradition of the female character being played by a male actor. He remarked after the show, "It was an interesting new experience. I think the performance went well and we did really well. And about the part of playing a women, I had to wear a bra for the play and I had to have a friend help me put that on. I found out what a girl goes through, and I have to give them props.”
Hairspray is a play about a young girl in 1960’s Baltimore. She gets a part on a dancing show and she makes a lot of waves because of her size and the fact that she wants to get the show to integrate. Along the way she finds love and she, her best friend, boyfriend and all of her unexpected friends get to teach the world what it is like to get along with one another.
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