NBC announced on Wednesday that the comedian Martin Short and the professional dancer Derek Hough are joining the cast of Hairspray Live! a small-screen musical produced by Universal Television that will be aired on December 7, from Los Angeles.
They will join Jennifer Hudson, as Motormouth Maybelle, and Harvey Fierstein, who will be playing Edna Turnblad, as well as writing the teleplay in the TV musical, based on the cult John Waters movie.
Hough, will be acting as the TV host Corny Collins, and Short will play patriarch Wilbur Turnlad, the beloved husband of Edna Turnblad.
Alex Rudzinski and Kenny Leon will direct the musical; Rudzinski will be the director for the TV show and Leon for the stage show.
“We welcome Marty to the network in May in his new variety show with Maya Rudolph and we think he will be the perfect long-term companion to Harvey’s Edna. And hands-down the best dancer on television and one of the best in the entertainment business, Derek Hough, will be perfect in the role of Corny Collins, the cocky song-and-dance-man who hosts the TV show every teenager in Baltimore wants to be on,” Robert Greenblatt, chairman of NBC Entertainment, said in a statement.
The musical
Hairspray Live! takes place in 1962 Baltimore, where teenager Tracy Turnblad has a dream to dance on a local television dance program called The Corny Collins Show. Against all odds, Tracy is available to have a role on the show, so she becomes a celebrity overnight and meets important characters of the show, including Link, the resident dreamboat; Amber, the ambitious mean girl; Seaweed, an African-American boy she meets in detention; and his mother, Motormouth Maybelle, owner of a local record store.
Hough won two Emmys for choreographing ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, where he has appeared for 16 seasons and won six times. Short has won a Tony Award for his appearance in Little Me, as well as two Emmys, including one for writing the classic 1980s TV network spoof SCTV.
Source: New York Times