Inside Hairspray

Hairspray, this year's Broadway Performance Club musical, was wonderful not only because of its success in Blagoevgrad and on the national tour, but for the unforgettable experience it gave to the cast members as well.

We remember the overwhelming excitement we felt at the party in Piano Bar at the beginning of the Fall 2009 semester, when the musical was announced; when we went to the auditions; when we tried hard to learn the Ladies' Choice dance; and when we started rehearsing our first moves.

Although we were told from the beginning that the musical required hard work, we were really excited at first. Soon our initial excitement started disappearing when the rehearsals started. The acting, singing and dancing rehearsals, which were organized more than four times per week, three hours each, squeezed the juice out of us. Our choreographers were shaping our bodies, while the art directors were trying to awake the sleeping actors in us. Still, we cannot deny that our success is due to all this hard work.

Antoni Stoyanov was nicknamed "Master Tony" because of the uncountable push-ups he made us do as punishments. Georgi Petrov, kept telling us: "exaggerate," "communicate," "enunciate," and "you are awful." Both have been transformed from annoying words into Hairspray cast's inside jokes. We will never forget the days spent in the theatre before the premiere and the return home in the middle of the night while blaming the day we joined the musical. But all the hardships, the sleepless nights and body aches were overshadowed by the pleasure and pride we felt while bowing in front of a standing ovation.

The performances in Blagoevgrad were the beginning of our true unity as a team. The extreme situations backstage such as wrecked microphones, ripped dresses, lost costumes, twisted ankles and broken shoes made us help each other as never before. This is why performances held in Varna, Sofia and Plovdiv have been incredibly easy to put together, despite the fact that the stage and the technical equipment were different.

The show in Varna was a success. To say that it was a surprise for us is to say nothing, as we were counting on a non-English speaking audience. Therefore, having people understand the message we wanted to bring them was an important achievement for us as strangers in a big city. The conductor of Varna Children's Opera said that we did an amazing job and managed to raise the bar really high for the next performance. The theater, which is almost 100 years old, has a very impressive architecture, but its atmosphere gave us chills. Some even started inventing ghost stories about it. Still, no ghosts could stop our Hairspray movement.

The performance in Sofia was one of the best ones. The audience was responsive as never before. People were laughing at random lines and moves that were not even intended to be funny. Applauses did not end during the whole show. There were people coming on stage and taking pictures of us, gathering autographs from us and media interviewing the organizers. Everything seemed too good to be true.

The last were the two performances in Plovdiv. As we stayed in the city for two days, we had the chance to take a look at this amazing city. It was the end of our tour, so we enjoyed our last minutes on stage to the maximum. Being stoned at the scene "I can hear the bells" while looking at the audience where two little girls sung along with us. I was astonished. They knew every song from the musical, word by word. I felt butterflies in my stomach and my eyes filled up with tears of happiness. Also, there was an old man who was collecting autographs from us, and he intended to join the Guinness book of world records by collecting the greatest number of autographs.

The musical Hairspray was one of the most unforgettable experiences in our lives; it touched every single one of us and left an inerasable memory. We thank the organizers and the cast members for the precious moments we experienced together.