Hairspray (2007 film) the 1988 John Waters film upon which the stage musical is based, became interested in adapting the stage show as a musical film. Development work began in late 2004, while a similarly film-to-Broadway-to-film project, Mel Brooks' "The Producers", was in production. Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the executive producers of the Academy Award-winning film adaptation of the Broadway musical "Chicago", were hired as the producers for "Hairspray", and began discussing possibly casting John Travolta and Billy Crystal (or Jim Broadbent) as Edna and Wilbur Turnblad, respectively. Thomas Meehan and Mark O'Donnell, authors of the book for the stage musical, wrote
The Ball (play) The Ball (play) The Ball is a Caroline comedy by James Shirley, first performed in 1632 and first published in 1639. "The Ball" was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 16 November 1632. Herbert, however, was not happy with the play: in a note in his office book dated two days later, 18 November, he complained that the play showed "diverse personated so naturally, both of lords and others of the Court, that I took it ill, and would have forbidden the play" — but impresario Christopher Beeston promised Herbert that everything that