Playing Tracy Turnblad at the Highland Arts Theatre is a dream come true for Jacqueline Winters, who first saw the 2007 Adam Shankman film when she was twelve years old at a drive-in movie theatre. I had a chat with Winters and Chris Tsujiuchi who plays Edna Turnblad and is also the show’s Musical Director, via Zoom, to hear all about how this cast is welcoming audiences in Sydney to the 60s this week.
The musical by Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman, Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan opened on Broadway in 2002 and went on to win eight Tony Awards. It is based on the 1988 film by John Waters of the same name, and centres on Baltimore High School student Tracy, a plus size girl in 1962 who loves to dance and wants nothing more than to get to do so on The Corny Collins Show, which features local kids. When the opportunity to audition comes up Tracy’s mother, Edna, is reluctant to let her go- fearing that she will be ridiculed for her size. Through this opportunity Tracy meets a Black dancer named Seaweed J. Stubbs and his mother Motormouth Maybelle and she sees first hand the systemic racism and segregation that is plaguing her city.
“I begged my mom to take me [to see Hairspray at the drive-in],” says Winters, “and I was absolutely captivated by it. I just absolutely fell in love… I honestly see a lot of myself in Tracy. As much as it’s been a dream of hers to dance on The [Corny Collins TV] Show, it’s been a dream of mine to play this character. So, I really relate in that sense as well. Growing up plus size, I really related to the movie and seeing a plus size woman go out there and take up space, and still make change, and get the guy, and not be afraid to be herself… she kind of grew up as one of my role models in a way.”
Winters has been singing and dancing since she was a young child, and did her first musical, Les Misérables at The Savoy Theatre in Glace Bay, when she was in her late teens. As a dancer Winters had the opportunity to dance to a number of different songs from Hairspray, and she was in the ensemble of a production of the Music of the Night production in Antigonish in 2019. This is her first time playing the lead in any musical. For Chris Tsujiuchi Hairspray was one of the first musicals he ever saw in New York City; he saw Bruce Vilanch play Edna. “It was super exciting and formative,” he says, “It was an amazing experience seeing it on Broadway. I remember it very vividly.” He also saw it in Toronto when Avery Saltzman was playing Edna, but he never imagined that one day he would be playing the role.
“I imagined that I would music direct [it] at some point, but I never imagined that I would be playing Edna, and I’m so stoked.” Wesley Colford, the musical’s director and the Artistic Director of the Highland Arts Theatre approached Tsujiuchi to Music Direct the show first, and then called him up later to ask if he might also like to play Edna. “And I said, ‘I’ve never thought about that. But it sounds exciting and slightly terrifying. Let’s do it!’”
Tsujiuchi says that Edna is “extremely loud, witty, she’s very smart, she’s resourceful, and at some point in her late thirties or early forties [she] has became a bit of a shut-in. She is deeply in love with [her husband] Wilbur. She’s a staunchly loving person. She loves Tracy very much. But, she doesn’t leave the house, and we don’t know why…. I think there are many experiences that Edna has had in her past that are informing her reaction to Tracy wanting to audition for The Corny Collins Show, and I think she has been hurt a lot of times, and so she doesn’t want Tracy to experience the same kind of bad things that she did, so she resists…. She also exists on the outer edges of society in a marginalized kind of way, just as a fat person, and I think that by virtue of the fact that she exists on the outer edges of society, or that as a fat person she is not centred in the same way as a thin person, she relates a little bit to the Black community in 1960s Baltimore, who also exist on the outer edges of society, and not in the centre for very different reasons.”
Winters characterizes Tracy as being optimistic and determined, but also different from her peers because of her size. “She doesn’t let [being different] stop her from living out her dreams and going for them. When she believes in something, there’s nobody that’s going to get in her way. There’s nobody that’s going to stop her from achieving whatever it is that she wants to accomplish, whether it be to get on the show, or to make change and bring everybody together to dance together. She kind of sees the world almost through rose coloured glasses. She always sees the positivity in everything. Even from the beat of [the opening song] “Good Morning Baltimore,” she’s excited because she sees the bum on the street, and the flasher in the street, all of these things that normally someone [wouldn’t be singing about] but to her, it’s like- this is my Baltimore and I love everything about it. I think that really tells a lot about her character. She just always sees the good in everything.”
“We have an absolutely stacked cast,” Winters continues, “I have said this to everybody, I feel like everybody was cast perfectly. I can’t picture anybody else in the roles. We have Felicia Headley, who plays an absolutely beautiful Motormouth [Maybelle]. Her “I Know Where I’ve Been” has brought me to tears many times during rehearsal. My Link Larkin is played by Maverick McDougall, he’s absolutely wonderful to work with, and, thankfully, we’ve known each other for a really long time, so it was a comfortable feeling as well.” She says there’s also quite a few people in the cast for whom this is their very first show, including Sean Malikyns, who plays Seaweed. She also sings the praise of Nick Porteous who plays her dad, Wilbur. Tsujiuchi and Porteous go back fifteen years, when they met through their best friends, one who went to Sheridan, and the other who went to George Brown, and they have been friends ever since. “It’s nice to finally be in a show together,” he says, “and to be married.”
Colford and Tsujiuchi were both in the same year at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario where they studied musical theatre, and they had been trying for a number of years get Tsujiuchi to come to Sydney to music direct a show at the HAT. “The timing was never right,” he says, “I couldn’t get out for that much time, or I was booked for something else. Two and a half years ago the HAT was producing their first panto, Jack in the Beanstalk, and Wes had asked me to do the musical arrangements, and also come and music direct it. It was exactly in the right time between the end of a music director contract and before my Christmas Cabaret (a highly anticipated annual event in the Toronto theatre community). I was like, ‘I can do this one!” I came out and spent less than a month in Sydney and by the end of it, I just wanted to come back. So, the following summer The Savoy and the HAT were co-producing Mamma Mia! and they were remounting Jack in the Beanstalk… so that one was like a twofer. Then, after doing Mamma Mia! and Jack back to back, I had met even more of this community of artists in Nova Scotia and CBRM, and the more time I spend in Sydney the more time I want to spend in Sydney. There’s something here that just isn’t in Toronto- no shade to Toronto- maybe it’s the fact that Wes has a barbecue in their backyard, and no one in Toronto ever has a barbecue because we all live in apartments and it’s not allowed,” he jokes, “maybe it’s the fact that Toronto doesn’t have a Dooly’s or Selkie’s [Neighbourhood Diner] breakfast burritos. It could be those things. I think it’s the people though.”
He characterizes Nova Scotians as having an “aggressive politeness,” citing how adamant the Cape Bretoners are that they will not accept payment from him when they offer to pick up something for him when they go on a Tim’s run. “Everything’s great until I say, ‘let me give you money.’ That’s when things go south,” he says with a smile.
I’m sure he fits right in amongst the kindhearted folks in Sydney, as he says that, like Winters, he too sees himself in Tracy. “I think there’s a little bit of Tracy Turnblad in all of us,” he says, “if we dig deep enough,”
The Highland Arts Theatre’s production of Hairspray opens tonight, July 31st, 2025, and only plays until August 3rd. Shows run tonight through Sunday at 7:30pm with a 2:00pm matinee on Sunday. Tickets range in price from $42.75 to $58.85 (including fees), depending on age and seating. Tickets are available here, by calling the Box Office at 902.565.3637 or visiting the Box Office at 40 Bentinck Street, Sydney, Nova Scotia.
The Highland Arts Theatre is wheelchair accessible. The theatre offers plus sized seating, an induction loop system for those who use hearing aids, and service dogs are welcome. For more Accessibility Information, please visit this website.
