Opening Out Front Theatre Company’s new season is the beloved Baltimore-set musical, “Hairspray,” in which teenager Tracy Turnblad aspires to be on “The Corny Collins Show” and sets out to integrate the show. The production is directed by Justin Kalin.
The goal with the show, Kalin says, was to stage something that was flat-out fun.
“When Paul [Conroy, Out Front’s founder and producing artistic director] and I were planning this season last year, looking at the calendar and seeing there’s a big election season and this cacophony of things happening, what was at the core of ‘Hairspray’ is a message that we think is prevalent and still important and it ends on a very hopeful note,” he told Georgia Voice. “It’s dressed up in such a way that the audience can experience a lot of joy. You can experience the kitsch of the 1960s, but leave feeling hopeful and not dejected. Getting to be part of an experience like that, particularly at a moment like this in the greater scope of the world, is a really exciting opportunity.”
Many familiar faces will be part of the show, including Blake Fountain, a fixture at drag productions at the company, as Edna Turnblad; Caty Bergmark, who directed 2023’s “The Prom,” playing Tracy Turnblad; Wynne Kelly, who starred in “The Prom,” as Amber Van Tussle; and Conroy himself plays Velma Von Tussle.
“It’s a blend of new faces and veteran ones,” Kalin said.
Directing Conroy has been a positive experience for Kalin.
“I was a little hesitant, because Paul is also my boss,” he said. “Working with that power dynamic is always a strange one, but I think Paul and I have a lot of mutual respect and trust from all the years of working together. We share a love of camp, a good joke and a gag. Anyone who has seen Paul’s work, especially ‘Ruthless’ and some of the Christmas shows we have done, a lot of his sensibilities are prevalent in the work that he does. [As an actor] he is willing to do anything you throw at him, from doing drag and learning how to do it, from planning the character voice to being unafraid to playing a heinous character.”
The material began as a 1988 John Waters film, then became a celebrated 2002 Tony Award-winning musical, before a second film version in 2007.
The documentary, “Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara” is now on Hulu. In it, Tegan Quin (half of the iconic lesbian band Tegan and Sara) details how she has been the victim of identity theft and a catfishing scam for over 15 years and the impact it’s had on her life.
The film marks the first time she has discussed it in public.
“Even within our circles it was such an overwhelming time and period in our career and life,” Quin told Georgia Voice. “On top of the fact that it was scary, and we were suspicious and paranoid about who might be listening in or reading our emails, it was a situation where it was such a crazy time in our lives and a story we never told.”
A tight-knit circle of managers and people Tegan and Sara were on the road with, as well as close friends, knew about the situation, as well as those who’d come in to work for the band.
In 2013, a few years after the situation started and after it had been established that someone had hacked into an old email account of Tegan’s and was operating it as her, she had to message everyone she’d ever met.
“I had to say, ‘If you are emailing this account, you are not talking to me,’” she recalled. “About a dozen people I know said that they had been talking to this account. They did not have the same level of violation and trauma that [film subject] JT did. It kept coming up; it was one of those conversations we ended up having to have with a lot more people than we wanted to. When our songs leaked, we had to go to our record company and hope they did not penalize us or flip out. It was a really stressful time. As it got worse and broadened, we changed the way we communicated. We didn’t email anymore.”
Quin wrote a story called “Fake Tegan” and took it to music journalist Jenny Eliscu, later a producer on the film. Eliscu suggested they take it to eventual director Erin Lee Carr.
“Our original idea was to make it a podcast, but when Erin got involved, she said we should pitch it as a film,” Quin said. “I wasn’t resistant, because it was my idea, but through the making of the film, I was hyper-focused on making sure we handled this with care. I didn’t want this to be a takedown of our audience; I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s life.”
At the time, catfishing wasn’t as common as it is today. No one even used the word.
“It was pre-catfishing,” Quin said.
The situation caused enormous apprehension and caution.
“I felt very much like this had happened to me in part because I had been overly friendly and nice, and that people had taken advantage of that,” she said. “In the years that followed other things happened, like the Pulse shooting in Florida, the Trump election, the wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation that created a lot more fear in us as public people.”
The two hired more security and made meet-and-greets more regulated — and learned when to draw the line.
Quin estimates fans were most intense between 2007 and 2015, when breaches of privacy into their personal space were most prevalent.
“What we established is that it’s a gut feeling,” she said. “Sometimes people are just rude, and we have to say no to a selfie. But if you have basic common manners, I’d never say no.”
“Hairspray” runs through November 9 at Out Front Theater Company
“Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara” is now streaming on Hulu.