Marissa Jaret Winokur, Kerry Butler and Laura Bell Bundy—the star trio of the history-making Broadway hit Hairspray—don’t like each other much. But then there’s no sense in letting a title as perfectly cued up as Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now! go to waste.
Of course, a lie has never been less convincing. Not about the title—songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman really threw them a softball. But the friendship among Broadway’s original (Tony-winning) Tracy Turnblad, Penny Pingleton and Amber Von Tussle is one of the main reasons to go see their nostalgic musical variety show at New World Stages. After 22 years, they’re still awed by one another’s talents, can make each other laugh or cry at the drop of a hat (Bundy is apparently the surest bet for tears), and most tellingly, have an over-active group chat that rides that endearing line between love and co-dependency.
Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek sat down with the trio to talk about their reunion show and the history that built it. Watch the video and read an edited version of the conversation below.
(Photo: Russ Rowland)
Look at this, back together! How does it feel to actually be sitting down and now spending a chunk of time together?
KERRY: So fun.
LAURA: We’ve known each other for over 20 years. The friendship is deep, and it’s gotten deeper doing this show.
KERRY: We have a text chain that goes on all day long. And all night sometimes.
LAURA: We came up together in a lot of ways. We had some minor success prior, but to have a core foundational friendship and then to go on and do this or that and the other, these are the girls that we were then. It’s nice to have people remind you who you are.
MARISSA: Because Kerry is my Penny, we were really close during the show. Laura was Amber, so I wanted nothing to do with Laura Bell. I hated her. I was always in character. But Laura and I became very close after Hairspray. So to now be at this place together—I always say it’s honoring my childhood joy of theater. It’s what I wanted to be when I was a kid and now I’m getting to do it with my best friends.
LAURA: This is Marissa’s first time back on a New York stage since she won the Tony for Hairspray!
What the heck?!
MARISSA: I know, what the heck?! I did other things.
KERRY: She became a mom, did tons of TV shows…
You’ve all become moms, and you were handed this beautiful title, Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now!, which is your incredible song in the show. Who was the first person to be like, “Wait, this is obviously the title.”
LAURA: It was me and Kerry.
KERRY: We saw it was the 20th anniversary and we were like, “We should do a concert for the 20th anniversary.” We have the video of Laura and I calling Marissa to pitch her the idea.
LAURA: And she did not respond.
MARISSA: I only just saw the video for the first time last week! I never got the video. And then a year later, Laura called me and asked me to do something and she’s like, “You know me and Kerry called you and asked you to do this thing.” And I was like, “Let’s do this thing! This is the best idea ever!” And it was full steam ahead.
You did some gigs out of town and now you’re in New York for a run at New World Stages. You all have many amazing credits to talk about and sing about, so how did you actually conceive a show?
LAURA: We were able to tell stories about our origin stories, from each of us as children, to our first impressions of each other, to Hairspray itself, to our lives and careers after and finding love and becoming mothers—all through popular songs that you would recognize or that you know us for without saying, “And then I did this.”
MARISSA: Yeah, there’s none of that.
KERRY: It’s a story.
LAURA: With music that you recognize and little comedy bits. Obviously we have a ton of props.
MARISSA: There’s not a bit Laura Bell misses. Poor Kerry will leave us alone for two minutes and she’ll come back and we’re like, “We have eight more bits!”
Hairspray was an instant phenomenon when it opened. And you [Marissa] were playing Tracy Turnblad, and you won a Tony Award. Is there naturally a rivalry between young actresses? Have you ever been up for parts against each other?
LAURA: Tell the story, Kerry.
KERRY: I did the very first reading of Legally Blonde. I recorded all the demos. Then one day Laura’s calling me up on the phone in her car like, “Kerry, I’m listening to you on the demos for Legally Blonde! You sound amazing! I’m going in to audition!”
LAURA: I was clueless, I think.
MARISSA: I think Hairspray was such an ensemble show that there was no built-in jealousy. My biggest joy was setting Kerry up to get her laugh. I say it a lot, but I’m like, it’s OK for three of us to be sparkling and shining on stage together. The better Kerry is, the better our show is. The better Laura is, the better our show is. I’m not saying that I’m never jealous of people, but I think the basis of our friendship started in a place of…
LAURA: …camaraderie.
You’ve all had incredible moments since Hairspray.
LAURA: We cheer each other on. We vote for Marissa on Dancing With the Stars.
MARISSA: I saw Legally Blonde—literally, I went to her first out-of-town in San Francisco.
KERRY: I was at opening night for that. It’s still fun to watch her do it in our show. Also I’m like, “Oh, OK, yeah—I couldn’t do that.
MARISSA: Kerry’s done so many things. I loved Catch Me If You Can. In our show, she does some Little Shop of Horrors. I remember loving her in it, but in our show it’s so fantastic. She’s such a perfect Audrey.
(Photo: Russ Rowland)
There’s a lot of talk about Hairspray coming back to Broadway. Do you think that there’s a chance to reinvent it slightly and make it different?
MARISSA: If they were like, “Here Marissa, how would you direct Hairspray if it came back in 2024?”—The world has changed so much. I would love to see it a little dirty. It could still be all the same words, all the same songs, but a little gritty, a little like the original movie. Not as Cotton candy. In 2002, it was right after September 11th. We needed to just bring joy. I feel like the younger audience now might relate more to something a little darker. A little more Baltimore real.
You have all matured so much since doing Hairspray. You have families, you have kids, you have totally different lives. What is it like to get this opportunity and to just get to be joyful together and celebrate this friendship every night?
KERRY: Our main goal was to spread joy with this show. We were like, there’s so much going on in the world. We just want 90 minutes where people could come, feel together, feel connection, see each other’s humanity, laugh and see themselves represented on stage as working women, mothers…
LAURA: …friends, sisterhood, nostalgia. You get to hear the hits while you experience the friendship and the formation of that friendship and then the three of us becoming moms. And we celebrate motherhood, but we also talk about the woes of it. This has been a really…[starts to cry] oh, here I go again.
MARISSA: She cries every day. Every show.
KERRY: During rehearsal, she cries every single time!
LAURA: Well, here’s the thing. I’m sentimental. By the way, you can’t listen to Kerry Butler sing “Somewhere That’s Green” or “Part of Your World” without crying. I have to sing “For Good” with her! But I’m sentimental because I’ve got to a point in my life where I don’t have time for new friends. I want to cultivate the relationships that I have and trust. It takes time to build trust, and that’s what we’ve got. I like continuing to cultivate this friendship. It’s deeper now than it ever has been.
MARISSA: The show has made me open my heart. I say I’m like the Grinch. The show has made my heart grow three sizes. I’m so grateful that I have them in my life, at this time in my life. We’ve always been friends, but to now have doubled down and have this connection at this time, I’m like, oh, I needed this. I really needed this.
(Photo: Russ Rowland)
