‘Hairspray’ role
Twenty-year-old Maddie Baillio to star in musical that addresses issues of race, class and gender
Maddie Baillio sat awake at 3 a.m. screwing up the nerve to go to an audition. She set her alarm for three hours later, woke up and then went to try out for “Hairspray Live!,” the latest in NBC’s successful series of musical telecasts.
Number 344 in a line of more than 1,000 singers and actresses, Baillio, who was raised League City, belted out a portion of “Good Morning, Baltimore.” Though she had a short lifetime of theater under her belt, she’d never appeared in a professional production.
It didn’t matter, the 20-year-old landed the plum lead role of Tracy Turnblad in the show, which will air live in December.
“I was confident with the part I’d prepared,” Baillio says. “But they asked me to sing the end of the song, which I didn’t know as well. I think I probably made up about 50 percent of those words.”
It didn’t matter, Baillio sufficiently impressed to land a potential careermaking role.
The “Hairspray” story is nearly 30 years old and has evolved from a cultish 1988 John Waters film to a 2002 Broadway musical based on that film to a 2007 film based on that musical. At its center is Turnblad, a cheery Baltimore dreamer who aspires to dance on “The Corny Collins Show,” a local television program.
Baillio’s introduction to the story was through the 2007 film. She was 11 at the time, and already eager to work in theater.
“I fell in love with the movie and Tracy,” she says. “We are alike. She’s so optimistic in so many ways. She sees things that others think of as gross as being beautiful and exciting. I think if everybody was more like Tracy the world would be a better place.”
Set in the 1960s, Waters’ film and the subsequent productions utilize bright colors to convey an enthusiastic tone that serves as a facade for barbed commentary about complex societal issues regarding race, class and gender.
“I’m ready to delve into all that,” Baillio says. “So many important themes in the show are still relevant today.”
Baillio says her earliest attempt at theater began with her being ignored. She wanted to be Dorothy in a community theater production of “The Wizard of Oz.”
“They forgot to cast me,” she says, laughing. So the roles of Almira Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West — typically played by one actor — were split so Baillio could play Gulch. “I knew then I wanted to perform forever. So I did more community theater, voice lessons and choir and theater all through high school.”
After graduating from Clear Falls High School, Baillio, 20, headed to New York to attend Marymount Manhattan College, where she has worked with the York Theatre Company in productions of “Once Upon a Mattress” and “Dracula, The Musical.”
At 18, Baillio won the Great American Songbook Vocal Academy and Competition, which afforded her the opportunity to perform with Michael Feinstein. They played together at distinguished venues near and far: the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York; and closer to home, the Grand 1894 Opera House in Galveston.
In “Hairspray Live!” Baillio will be joined by Harvey Fierstein, who won a Tony Award for his part in the musical, as well as Jennifer Hudson, Martin Short and Derek Hough. Fierstein also will write a new teleplay for the show.
Baillio plans to take at least one semester off from school to focus on the role.
“I plan to complete that,” she says of her schooling. And for a moment, she sounds as wide-eyed and awed as Tracy. “Everything has happened so quickly. Rehearsals start in October and they’re in Los Angeles.
“I’ve never been to Los Angeles.”