A local Turnblad
League City’s own Maddie Baillio set to star in ‘Hairspray Live!’
The role of Tracy Turnblad, the tenacious teenager in the musical “Hairspray,” can launch a career.
Marissa Jaret Winokur starred in the 2002 Broadway version and earned a Tony for her performance. The 2007 film — a remake of John Waters’ campy 1988 cult classic — put Nikki Blonsky in the spotlight for the first time.
But on Wednesday evening, when a starstudded “Hairspray Live!” airs on NBC, a new girl’s in town as the film’s central figure — League City native Maddie Baillio.
Baillio, a theater major at Marymount Manhattan College, beat out thousands of other singers in an open casting call with a rendition of the show’s cheery “Good Morning Baltimore.” Now she’ll be singing and dancing to 1960s R&B alongside Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson, Broadway and TV star Kristin Chenoweth and pop singer Ariana Grande.
For Baillio, Tracy was always a dream role.
“She’s like the ultimate underdog, so everyone can relate to her,” Baillio says in a conference call. “So I’m happy to be that for everyone.”
Baillio says she got her start in community theater after her mother, who works at NASA, saw how much she disliked everything else while growing up.
“I did, like, gymnastics and softball and swim team and all kinds of sports growing up,” Baillio says. “And I hated all of it, and I just wanted to sing.”
Her parents recognized the passion and began to support her. It paid off. In 2014, Baillio was named Great American Songbook Youth Ambassador and performed with Michael Feinstein at the Kennedy Center.
“Letting me pursue my dreams, I think that really shaped who I am,” she says.
Baillio speaks with appropriately Tracyesque pep when talking about working with her co-stars, but she’s not starstruck. Rather, she’s using this opportunity to learn from mentors such as Ricki Lake, who starred as Turnblad in the original film and told Baillio to “say yes to every opportunity.”
Meanwhile, Winokur told Baillio to always listen to Harvey Fierstein, who reprises his role as Tracy’s strict mother, Edna.
Not that Baillio’s in particular need for guidance — the 20-yearold is drawing plenty inspiration from the character she’s playing.
“Hairspray” tackles two stigmas in 1960s America: racial integration and body image. Tracy Turnblad, who isn’t pencil thin like everyone else on her favorite TV variety show, “The Corny Collins Show,” is ridiculed for her looks when she auditions for a part on the program but, through pluck and positivity, triumphs nonetheless.
“When I was younger, I was bullied a lot, and I let that stop me from doing things that I really wanted to do,” Baillio says. “And Tracy, she never lets anything stop her, and she’s bullied constantly. And so because she doesn’t let anything stop her, she gets the guy, and she gets to be on the show, and she changes the world.
“So I think that’s a good message for every kid out there.”
Though, Baillio says, there is one down side to her sudden step into potential fame:
“I miss Texas so much.”