Making Bruce Vilanch into Edna Turnblad will require a lot of 'Hairspray'
Can a tousled, T-shirted, hirsute, 5'11", 280-pound man be transformed into a stylish, bouffant-coiffed 1962 Bawlamer matriarch? That's exactly what the makeup and hair artists clustered in a 42nd Street rehearsal hall are wondering. Their mission? To transmogrify Bruce Vilanch into Edna Turnblad, the zaftig middle-aged mother in "Hairspray," John Waters' movie-turned-Tony-Award-winning-musical, which launches its national tour at the Mechanic Theatre on Sept. 9. In the musical, it takes only a few verses of the song "Welcome to the '60s," to turn drab Edna into a model mom. In real life, it remains to be seen how long it will take to turn Vilanch - who's trying on his makeup and wig for the very first time - into the mother of the musical's irrepressible heroine, a tubby teen determined to win a spot on a local TV dance show. Sunspot.net
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