Buckle your seat belts for a ride back to 1960s Baltimore for the musical “Hairspray” at Kelsey Theater featuring a collaboration of Mercer College theater students, actors from the James Tolin Memorial Fund, and community actors. Opening night is Friday, April 13, at 8 p.m. A reception with the cast and crew follows the opening night performance.
Tracy Turnblad, the lovable, plus-size heroine with a passion for dancing, is portrayed by Kristen Kane, a senior at High School North. The cast also includes Ethan Daniel Levy of Plainsboro as Corny Collins; and Ben Menahem of Plainsboro as Link Larkin.
“After I saw the musical on Broadway I knew that this was a part that really was made for me,” says Kane. “I love Broadway musicals so it was no surprise to me that I fell in love with the show and Tracy Turnblad and I just know that I wanted to be able to make an audience laugh, smile, and cry like Tracy on Broadway did for me.”
Born in New York City, she has been raised in Plainsboro. She tells everyone she is a New Yorker and hopes to get back there as an adult. “I am definitely a city girl at heart,” she says.
Kane sings with Silver Lining, the all girls acapella group at North, and until recently sang with Out of the Blue, the coed acapella group. She has played the piano since she was seven, and the French horn since fifth grade.
Her parents are supportive of her goal to major in musical theater. “They have helped me through all of my ups and downs and I will never forget that,” she says. “My mother never had one doubt in her mind that I could do this, but she is concerned about money in the crazy field called show business.”
Her mother, Connie Kane, is a stay-at-home mom. Her father, Joseph Kane, works at Merrill Lynch (now Bank of America). Her sister, Katie, is a fifth grade student at Millstone River.
“I have wanted to play Tracy Turnblad for a while now,” says Kane. “It probably started after I saw the movie because I wanted to kiss Zac Efron, but after a while I got to thinking that this musical provides such a beautiful message that I really wanted to share with my family, friends, and community.”
“I prepared for my audition by going to my voice teacher, Patricia Bartlett, who helped me pick a good song to showcase my range,” says Kane, who sang “Take Me or Leave Me” from “Rent.” The production staff asked her to sing it again — in the way that Tracy would sing it. “To prepare for the role I did research to get a feel for how life really was like in Baltimore, Maryland, in the 1960s,” says Kane.
“I didn’t really have to try to become Tracy because we have so many of the same qualities,” says Kane. “In some ways Tracy is just Kristen Kane in a wig. I really am a crazy girl and, like Tracy, always smiling, goofy, and just love to see everyone happy.”
“After the movie came out all my classmates said I was just like that girl in `Hairspray,’” she says. “I really am grateful to get to play this role because it teaches so much about accepting everyone for who they are and about treating everyone like you want to be treated.”
Kane has been studying voice with Princeton GirlChoir since the third grade, and began formal lessons with Danielle Sinclair (of Plainsboro) when she was a sophomore. Last year she began studying with Bartlett. She has studied jazz, tap, ballet, and hip hop with the Dance Corner in West Windsor. Last year she began working with acting coach Pamela Jorgensen.
She started getting active in plays and musical theater in middle school. “I was always nervous to start but once I started I will never stop,” say Kane. Some of her roles include Ernestine in “Cheaper by the Dozen,” a narrator in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” Mrs. Darling in “Peter Pan,” and Mrs. Potts in “Beauty and the Beast.”
Last summer Kane auditioned to be Tracy in a community theater in Moorestown. When she got a callback for the role, she and her mother decided that school work had to come first since it was her junior year. “I never thought an opportunity would come along again, and I was so happy to hear that Kelsey was doing it.”
The James Tolin Memorial Fund, eager to collaborate with students on the project, will receive a percentage of profits from the production. “They are a small, but committed group that performs every year at Kelsey Theater as a fundraiser in memory of MCCC alumnus James Tolin, who died of AIDS,” says Jody Person, the theater and dance program coordinator at Mercer College. “The group awards two scholarships to MCCC theater students each year. Now they are taking that relationship further by working with our students. It’s a big musical that reflects JTMF’s mission of appreciating and respecting diversity.”
— Lynn Miller
Hairspray, Kelsey Theater, Mercer County Community College, 1200 Old Trenton Road, West Windsor. Weekends, Friday, April 13, to Sunday, April 22. 1960s musical about dancing, integration, family, and love presented by the James Tolin Memorial Fund and MCCC theater, dance, and entertainment technology students. $18. 609-570-3333. www.kelseytheatre.net.
