“Good morning, Shippensburg!”

Those three simple words are how the national tour of “Hairspray” welcomed us as they performed at the Luhrs Performing Arts Center Thursday night.

I’ll be honest, I had forgotten just how strong of a musical “Hairspray” is. One of the all-time great opening numbers, “Good Morning, Baltimore,” sets up hits like “Welcome to the ’60’s,” “Without Love” and of course, “You Can’t Stop the Beat.”

“Hairspray” is one of those shows that is highly entertaining even if the production is only decent. Much of this cast is wonderful, but like the Corny Collins Show itself, some production numbers felt dry until the diversity of the cast is welcomed. This, combined with an audience that lacked energy — even with selling $15 student tickets — made it hard to reach the level of energy that the Corny Collins Show should exude. I wish more seats had been filled, but once we met Seaweed and Motormouth Maybelle, the party was on.

My biggest issue with this production was the sound mixing. At times, the orchestra was far too loud and some dialogue was nearly impossible to fully understand. Several lyrics during “Big, Blonde and Beautiful” were particularly difficult to comprehend. I have heard this before, however, as finding the right sound mix can be a struggle that comes with spending just about 24 hours in a venue while on tour.

I consider “Hairspray” to be one of the best film adaptations of a musical, so that makes it difficult to not compare this cast to John Travolta, Christopher Walken and Michelle Pfieffer, among others. That being said, Deidre Lang’s Motormouth Maybelle and Josiah Rogers’ Seaweed Stubs were standouts for me. Lang just about brought the house down with “I Know Where I’ve Been.”

I was not as pleased with Velma Von Tussle or Corny Collins, but it brings me no joy to speak bad about “Hairspray.” Besides, I’m still singing their songs four days later.

Luhrs has several more shows in its Broadway series this semester, so take advantage of this and support live theater. 

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