Dancer Derek Hough and comedian Martin Short are on the dance card for NBC's Hairspray Live!
Hough and Short are joining headliners Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson and Tony recipient Harvey Fierstein, who is writing the teleplay for the production. Fierstein will portray Edna Turnblad in the Dec. 7 NBC production. He won a Tony award for the role, which he played for the first two of Hairspray's seven-year run on Broadway. Set in 1962, Hairspray follows Baltimore teenager Tracy Turnblad as she realizes her dream to dance on a local television show and then proceeds to shake things up on the show with the encouragement of her mother, Edna.
“We are very happy to have the inimitable Martin Short to play Edna’s loving husband, Wilbur,” said NBC Entertainment chief Robert Greenblatt in a statement. “We welcome Marty to the network in May in his new variety show with Maya Rudolph and we think he will be the perfect long-term companion to Harvey’s Edna. And hands-down the best dancer on television and one of the best in the entertainment business, Derek Hough, will be perfect in the role of Corny Collins, the cocky song-and-dance-man who hosts the TV show every teenager in Baltimore wants to be on.”
Hudson, currently appearing on Broadway in a revival of The Color Purple, will play Motormouth Maybelle, the owner of a local record store. Hudson won a supporting-actress Oscar for her role in Dreamgirls, a film adaptation of a musical.
Emmy-winner Short also has a Tony, Theatre World Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award for his role in the revival of Little Me. The Saturday Night Live alum was also nominated for a Tony and took home an Outer Critics Circle Award for the musical version of Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl.
Hough, whose sister Julianne starred in the Fox production Grease: Live!, won two Emmys for choreography for the ABC series Dancing With the Stars. After appearing on stage at London’s West End in the 2006 original cast production of Footloose, he then made his Broadway debut in 2010 in Burn the Floor. Hough, who has a recurring role in ABC's Nashville, recently was announced as the lead actor in a 2017 Broadway revival of Singin’ in the Rain.
