‘Mama I’m a Big Girl Now!’
Looking back at ‘Hairspray’ and forward to a new musical with Marissa Jaret Winokur
She never got the message.
That’s her story, and she’s sticking to it.
The she in this case is Marissa Jaret Winokur, one-third of the triumphant triumvirate starring in “Mama I’m a Big Girl Now.” It’s a joyous musical that reunites three of the original stars of the Broadway hit “Hairspray,” who tell and sing their amazing stories of friendship, family, and career.
They are Ms. Winokur, of course, who won a Tony for portraying Tracy Turnblad in the play. She is joined by Laura Bell Bundy and Kerry Butler — Amber Van Tussle and Penny Pingleton in “Hairspray.”
And don’t worry if you missed “Hairspray.” This is more about three successful actors singing about the various joys of their lives — professional and personal — than about the John Waters film-turned-musical that brought them together.
Which brings us back to the missed phone call and the story of how the show almost never happened. “Mama I’m a Big Girl Now” ends with a video of Laura and Kerry leaving Marissa a phone message suggesting they perform together.
I’d met Ms. Winokur briefly after a pre-opening performance, and we spoke the next day on the phone.
I asked her about that call.
“They said they called me in January 2023,” she told me. “They remember because that’s when they were doing a show together.” Laura spearheads an annual benefit for a Utah theater company, and she and Kelly were performing there when they reached out to Marissa.
But Ms. Winokur spent much of that year in Canada filming the TV series “What We Do in the Shadows.” She suspects that’s why “I never got the message.”
About 10 months later, Laura asked Marissa to sing at the 2024 benefit for the theater company, and in the process mentioned that she and Kelly had called earlier. Before Laura could say anything else, Marissa had an idea:
“I was like, my God, we should do a concert together. We should talk about being moms. Like literally, I pitched them the same show a year later like it was my idea. Until I saw the video, I thought it was.
“They always said they had a video, but I didn’t believe it. Finally, Laura found it. The first time I saw it was like a week ago, and I told them, you guys, we have to put that in the show. That should be the end of our show. This is hilarious.”
Coming up with material for the new show was relatively easy. The three ladies each had versions of one-person concerts about their lives, so it was simply a matter of adapting.
“It was interesting because we all pretty much have the same stories, the same journey,” Ms. Winokur said. “We all had theater careers. We all have TV careers. We all got married and became moms. So all our stories intertwined. And it was like, oh my gosh, we really have similar journeys, which makes for great storytelling. Plus the fact that we have a 20-year friendship.”
That relationship made creating the play much simpler. “If Laura gives me a note that a joke is not landing, I know it’s coming from a place of me she’s known for 20 years; she can feel that I’m pushing or that the audience didn’t get that joke, Because we know each other, I don’t take it as, oh Laura’s trying to tell me what to do. It’s coming from a much different place than if I were doing the show with two girls I didn’t know.”
All three “being a 50-year-old” changes your priorities. Now, for each, family comes first. Ms. Winokur notes, “We took off Halloween so Laura could go trick-or-treating with her son. I didn’t fly in right away because my son had a tennis tournament, so we started rehearsals late. Kerry had to go to her daughter’s college orientation. Our families come first, and the show is just a bonus fun event.”
That attitude permeates the show. There is nothing forced about it. It becomes clear early on that the actors are there because they want to be, not because they have to. They are clearly having a great time, and as a result so does the audience.
“We’re not doing it to make money,” Ms. Winokur said. “We are literally doing it because there’s no place I would rather be than on the stage with these two women.”
Missed phone calls aside, in many ways the production seems bashert. One of the reasons it went on in the first place is that another company wanted to scale the number of performances down. So the theater at the really cool New World Stages in Manhattan was available part-time. “Mama I’m a Big Girl Now” is performed only four days a week.
It was also convenient that everyone is kind of East Coast based. Both Bund and Butler live in New Jersey while Winokur is bicoastal. She recently rebought the house in Bedford, New York, where she grew up.
That house was designed by her father, Michael, who was an architect. Her mom, Maxine, was a teacher, and Marissa was — and these are her words — a “whoops baby.” She has two brothers, each more than a decade older than she is, and a sister four years her senior.
“We were raised in a very strong, very loving Jewish home, which to me always meant everybody was welcome,” Ms. Winokur said. “There were always people staying with us. There were always big dinners. And I know that’s not, quote unquote, being Jewish, but that always felt to me like I live in a Jewish home.
“I remember my parents were always working the polls and telling my friends the most important thing they can do is vote. Again, that’s not necessarily Jewish, but I remember feeling, oh my parents were trying to like save the world.”
The family belonged to Temple Shaaray Tefila of Westchester in nearby Bedford Corners, where the Winokur kids attended Hebrew school. But unlike her siblings, she did not become a bat mitzvah. She suffered from dyslexia, and her parents felt mastering her parasha and haftarah would be too great a strain. (She is still mildly dyslexic but has taught herself workarounds when reading scripts.)
Other than that, Marissa lived a seemingly blessed life. She was a cheerleader and captain of the soccer team at Fox Lane High School. She graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and landed a role in a touring company of “Grease,” ultimately even following the show to Broadway when it was revived in 1994.
She got involved in early table reads for “Hairspray.” The road from script to Broadway can take three or four years, with many private readings for backers and others. Her future seemed as bright as can be.
That’s when the other shoe dropped.
She was diagnosed with cervical cancer. “I got the diagnosis right after the first workshop, and I was able to go through all my surgeries and treatment prior to us opening. I didn’t tell a soul involved in ‘Hairspray,’ because I knew they would just recast me.
“I was living in Los Angeles, so nobody knew what I was going through. I would fly to New York, do my readings, and then fly back to L.A. to deal with the real issues. Even after I got the part, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want people saying, ‘oh my God, I can’t believe that girl has cancer. What she must be going through.’ I just wanted them to come and enjoy ‘Hairspray’ and love the show and love Tracy.”
It wasn’t until after the show’s success and Marissa’s Tony “that I started talking about my cancer. I told myself, wow, look at everything I did. It might inspire other people who are getting bad news now.”
Ironically, the disease and the play had an almost symbiotic relationship. “I remember being in a PET scan or an MRI, sometimes for three hours. From the beginning, I would go through the entire show, sing all the songs. I’ve always believed that ‘Hairspray’ was getting me through the cancer, because I had something bigger to focus on.
“I never really emotionally dealt with having cancer. My dream my whole life was to be Ethel Merman and be a Broadway star. I didn’t care about TV or film. I just wanted to be Ethel Merman and do Broadway musicals, and this was my chance. I was like, this cancer is not going to take me out. I am going to beat it.
“I had a goal. I had a dream. And I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself because I had to get better fast. And I think that’s what saved my life.”
After surgery and treatments, doctors were able to tell her they got it all and she was cured.
Tickets are available at mamaimabiggirlnow.com
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