If ever there were a stage show that matched - if not, fared better - than the movie version, it would the Arts Club Theatre Company's production of Hairspray.
Well directed, produced, cast and choreographed, Hairspray runs at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage in Vancouver until July 10.
And, luckily for Tri-City audiences, the 21-member ensemble includes four actors from this region: Robyn Wallis, Darren Burkett, Allison Fligg and Kimberly Gelera.
Port Coquitlam's Wallis, 21, owns the role of Penny Pingleton, the high-pitched friend to the lead character Tracy Turnblad (Jennie Neumann).
Wallis somehow manages to remain as stiff as a board despite the toe-tapping, hip-swaying music around her.
Burkett, 23, a Coquitlam resident who is no stranger to the Arts Club Theatre Company having been in its White Christmas, Beauty and the Beast, The Producers and Gypsy, is the consummate performer - a triple threat with excellent dancing, singing and acting skills.
He plays Fender, a friend to the hunky Link Larkin (Adam Charles).
Meanwhile, Allison Fligg of Port Moody plays Brenda, the dancer who leaves the Corny Collins Show for (hmm....) nine months and whose absence creates a space that Turnblad fills.
Fligg, Wallis and Gelera are making their Arts Club debuts with Hairspray, which follows the story of Turnblad in Baltimore in 1962 and her quest to make every day "Negro Day" on Collins' show instead of every month.
She is helped by Collins (played by the outstanding Matt Palmer) who wants to update his T.V. program and to get national attention by promoting racial integration.
Still, while most of Hairspray's cast is young and energetic, it's the older characters that steal the show.
Andy Toth (the understudy to Jay Brazeau who suffered a stroke at the start of the Arts Club production) and Laurie Murdoch are magic as Turnblad's parents; they have a sweet duet with (You're) Timeless To Me that brings the house down.
And Alana Hibbert, who is cast as Motormouth Maybelle, host of "Negro Day" and the mother to Seaweed J. Stubbs (J. Cameron Barnett), delivers a passionate rendition of I Know Where I've Been.
If there is any criticism of the show, it's that the talented Gelera, a PoCo resident, is miscast in her part of Little Inez, Stubbs' sister; the same goes for Charles, who doesn't exude enough swagger to pull off the sexy Larkin.
That aside, special kudos go to PoCo's Valerie Easton, Wallis' mother, who put together Hairspray's dance moves right after directing and choreographing The Will Rogers Follies for the Royal City Musical Theatre in April that starred Palmer.
Hairspray runs at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage (2750 Granville St., Vancouver) until July 10.
For tickets, call 604-687-1644 or visit the Arts Club website at artsclub.com.
