Mitchell & O'Brien to Co-Direct Hairspray Film
O'Brien won a Tony Award for his direction of the stage version of Hairspray and Mitchell was nominated for a Tony for his work as the show's choreographer. The team also worked together on The Full Monty and Imaginary Friends and are currently in California leading rehearsals for the Old Globe world premiere production of the Broadway-bound Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. For all of these shows, O'Brien served as director and Mitchell was credited as choreographer, they have never officially co-directed a piece. Neither one has directed a feature film, although Mitchell has served as choreographer on plenty of them most recently last year's Marci X.
The musical's co-librettists Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan are writing the screenplay for the Hairspray film with composer Marc Shaiman producing the songs and serving as music supervisor. No stars have been named for the film, although New Line honcho Michael Lynne previously told Variety that the notion of hiring stage stars Harvey Fierstein and Marissa Jaret Winokur who both won Tonys for their work in the show to recreate their roles was "not out of the question."
New Line Cinema, the studio which made the original 1988 John Waters film that the Tony-winning show is based on, is hoping to have the movie musical in theaters by 2006. A New Line spokesperson told Broadway.com that no official offer had been given out, and therefore it was premature to comment.