Jennifer Hudson and Harvey Fierstein for Hairspray Live!

Pop star Jennifer Hudson and Broadway legend Harvey Fierstein have been named for the upcoming NBC production Hairspray Live!

Hudson will play Motormouth Maybelle, while Fierstein will reprise his Tony Award winning turn as Edna Turnblad. He is also writing the tele-play for the production.

More names have yet to be announced for the cast, who will be directed by Alex Rudzinski.

Harvey-Fierstein

This is NBC’s latest live musical production, following the success of The Wiz, Peter Pan and The Sound of Music, all of which have drawn large, mainstream audiences. Fox ran a rival production, Grease Live at the end of 2015.

Hairspray Live! follows the 2002 Broadway musical and 2007 move adaptation of the same name, which themselves were based on the original 1988 John Waters movie.

Personally, we’ll be hoping for a Zac Efron reprisal of his performance as Link in the hit movie.

All will be revealed in the coming months, and the show will air on December 7 this year.

It will likely be syndicated in the UK over the Christmas period.

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