Broadway's Biggest Do: Take John Waters's Whacked-Out Civil Rights Saga, Add a Backbeat by Marc Shaiman, and You Get Hairspray-A Big, Fat Hit

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Hairspray * Book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan * Music by Marc Shaiman * Lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman * Directed by Jack O'Brien * Starring Harvey Fierstein, Marissa Jaret Winokur * Neil Simon Theatre, New York City (open run)

Hairspray delivers what Broadway didn't even know it needed: a feel-good civil rights musical. By now everybody knows that composer Marc Shaiman, who cowrote the cheerfully obscene songs for South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, has transformed John Waters's tangy-sweet 1988 movie into a Broadway musical. He had help from his longtime boyfriend and co-lyricist, Scott Wittman, and The Full Monty's director-choreographer team of …