The 2020–2021 tour of the Tony-winning musical Hairspray will launch August 20–29 at the Leicester Curve. It will go on to visit Manchester Palace, Bradford Alhambra, Blackpool Winter Gardens, Aylesbury Waterside, Birmingham Hippodrome, Glasgow Kings Theatre, Northampton Royal and Derngate, Woking New Victoria, Liverpool Empire, and Brighton Theatre Royal before the end of the year.
The tour will resume January 11, 2021, at the Southampton Mayflower and continue on to Bristol Hippodrome, Edinburgh Playhouse, Inverness Eden Court, Ipswich Regent, Dublin Bord Gais Energy Theatre, Milton Keynes Theatre, Sunderland Empire, Sheffield Lyceum, Nottingham Theatre Royal, High Wycombe Swan, Plymouth Theatre Royal, Belfast Grand Opera House, Wolverhampton Grand, Cardiff Wales Millennium Centre, Norwich Theatre Royal, Leeds Grand, Southend Cliffs Pavilion, and the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, where it will conclude in May.
Paul Kerryson directs the production, with choreography by Drew McOnie. Casting and the complete creative team will be announced at a later date.
Hairspray, which is based on the John Waters film, premiered at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theater in June 2002, subsequently opening at Broadway's Neil Simon Theatre in July. The show became the longest-running musical to play the Neil Simon, ending its run January 4, 2009. The musical, which features a book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan and an original score by Marc Shaiman and lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman, is the story of 16-year-old Tracy Turnblad in 1960’s Baltimore as she sets out to dance her way onto TV’s most popular show.
A screen adaptation of the musical premiered in 2007. A live TV broadcast aired on NBC in 2016, featuring original star Fierstein. In addition to the U.K. tour, a West End production will open this spring, reuniting original director Jack O'Brien and choreographer Jerry Mitchell. The two are also behind an upcoming North American tour.
The Broadway cast of Hairspray
