Las Vegas Academy brings boisterous ‘Hairspray’ back to town

Subtlety, thy name is not this show.

"They'll hear me knockin' with the two of these" says the director (of the male persuasion) next to a female cast member in a rehearsal hall, wiggling provocatively in full demonstration mode for his tentative performer.

After speaking that lyric of the brassy "Big, Blonde and Beautiful" with its stripper-esque BOOM-ba-ba-BOOM blasting from a boombox on the floor, his chest thrust out, his big-boned body sashaying in a come-hither slither, Robert Connor shakes a nonexistent -- but apparently impressive -- rack.

"Do you know it's the breasts?" he asks the cast member who actually has them, about the meaning of the lyric.

"Yes," she says.

"Then knock with them."

Understated as a bouffant 'do with rainbow highlights, "Hairspray" is in the house. True, a sheared-off, one-act version had a bad-hair run at Luxor in 2006, so why not let these teen troupers give the fully scented "Hairspray" their own special spritz.

"Move those hips, that's what I'm looking for!" exhorts choreographer Tammy Pessagno. Slinking to the quasi-lascivious "dirty boogie" -- suggestively learning forward, hands rubbing on thighs, twitchy back end in motion -- she earns appreciative hoots in a studio crammed with young dancers luv-luv-lovin' the booty she's shove-shove-shovin' around.

Next door in another studio, band conductor Pat Bowen stops the beat of "You Can't Stop the Beat" because the beat isn't yet unstoppable. "I'm not liking what you're giving me," Bowen tells his student musicians, waving away the fading chords of a tune that needs to spike your pulse.

"I want 'Wooly Bully.' I want Brian Wilson. I want the Beach Boys. That's not what I'm getting."

Odds are -- even if those kids weren't alive when Brian and the Boys had fun, fun, fun till Daddy took their T-Bird away -- he'll get it tonight, when "Hairspray" opens at downtown's Lowden Theatre, staged by students of Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Performing and Visual Arts.

"There's almost a hundred kids onstage, so as a director, you have to be like an air traffic controller or a barker at a carnival," Connor says. "You feel like you're in one of those old movies where they stand up on a ladder with a megaphone and go, 'Oooo-kaaay!' I wonder how Cecil B. DeMille did it."

Boisterous paean to individuality, the '60s cultural quake and livin' life as large as its generously proportioned heroine, the John Waters movie-turned-Broadway musical-turned-movie musical is a big ol' lollipop of a show with a dance-mad, pop/R&B score. Plus a message.

Set in 1962 Baltimore, it's the tale of "pleasantly plump" and relentlessly sunny Tracy Turnblad, who realizes her dream when she lands a spot on "The Corny Collins Show," the snow-white dance program with the twig-figured cheerleader types.

Determined to integrate and expand its horizons, Tracy and her pals add color and curves to the pale, skinny ideal of Americana in the early '60s.

Social injustice, tolerance and vive la difference addressed in musical comedy terms. " 'Hairspray' is teaching you while you're laughing," Connor says.

"Unfortunately, some our young people have a disconnect from American history. We celebrate that we have our first African-American president and kids here have no qualms about that. Oftentimes in rehearsal, I have to say, 'Do you realize why this is happening?' Many of them have no clue. It's great that they don't see color before character, but it's a little scary because they don't see the history."

Done right, "Hairspray" is a killer musical. That takes killer rehearsals.

"Places! Now! Move!"

That's the director. You don't want to even partially test his patience. Not here. Not now. "You will be kicked out of my rehearsal if I see you chatting one more time. This is not a lounge."

Repeating the refrain with increasing annoyance -- tone growing harsher, stare growing harder until a tense silence hangs over a room of more than 50 people -- he regains the attention no one would dare deny him now. Resuming rehearsal on the number "It Takes Two," he's not seeing the sassy shuffle he wants from one dancer, moving up next to him and mimicking his draggy movement.

"You're doing this? What is that? Flipper?"

But as Connor executes the move he wants, the room exhales with affectionate laughter: A big, bald, gray-bearded teddy bear is tearing up the boogie, a broad smile racing up his face. Twinkling almost reluctantly, he acknowledges the warmth beaming toward him.

"He pushes hard but he gets it done," says 17-year-old Kaleigh Wright, who shares the role of Tracy. "After all the sweat and tears and the blood sometimes, we always have a beautiful show we're so proud of. All the yelling and the harsh tactics he may try to use on us, it all works out and we love him for it."

Alternating with Wright is Malia Civetz, 16, who has avoided the idea of, well, avoidance. Unlike actors who prefer not to see movies or videos of other actors who've played their roles, Civetz is creating a hybrid Tracy.

"Marissa Winokur (in the original stage musical), she had this really nasally voice," Civetz says. "Then Nikki Blonsky, who did it in the movie (musical), she was totally toned down, more of a chill Tracy. And Ricki Lake in the original film, she had this sass about her, so I tried to pick elements I liked out of all of them so I could create a new Tracy."

Cross-dressing castmates face the most physically exhausting ordeal. "I have rehearsed in heels and it's painful," says Robert Riordan, 16, who alternates in the role of Edna, Tracy's hefty mama, played memorably by Harvey Fierstein in the Broadway/Luxor versions, John Travolta in the movie musical and Divine in the original film.

"And they had to special-order me a fat suit. (Choreographer Tammy Pessagno) was asking us to jump and I thought, 'Can I jump in a fat suit?' It makes me stick my arms out, but I'm going to do my best not to be totally awkward."

Sharing Edna's sizable load, 16-year-old Matthew Little is both amazed and appalled by the demands of drag. "It's taken me three weeks just to learn how to walk in heels -- it's ridiculous, I don't understand how girls can do it," Little says. "And it's going to take a lot of meditation before the show just to do the dancing in the fat suit and the heels -- oh, and the acting too."

Omitting one small anatomical adjustment, aren't they?

Edna's famous frontal assault.

Forget walking in heels. Try walking with those. ... Yes, Mr. Director, they know it's the breasts.

Subtlety, thy name is ... not Triple-E's.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.