"Hairspray" LIVE!

   Recently, NBC debuted Hairspray Live on Wednesday, December 7th. As you may expect, there were several commercials over the last month or so advertising the musical, who it was starring, and the fact that it was live on television. Many of these announcements would give little sneak peaks of what was to be expected the day of. They also showed some familiar faces that would be starring in it, including Martin Short, Ariana Grande, Derek Hough, Jennifer Hudson, Harvey Fierstein--who starred in it previously and currently as Edna Turnblad--and many more. When holding auditions, I believe NBC wanted a combination of past, present, and future faces of acting and musical theater. For example, people like Martin Short and Harvey Fierstein are directed at the "middle-aged" generation, the past. People like Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson, and Derek Hough, though, are the more current faces of fame and appeal to the millennials. Lastly, stars making their television debut like Maddie Baillio and Ephraim Sykes were emphasized, trying to grab people's attention to support these up and coming stars. Overall, the plan was to grab everyone's attention; to appeal to all generations. But, in addition to TV ads and commercials, NBC used another medium to inform people and get them excited: snapchat.
    On the discover page, that all snapchat users most likely swipe to, users might have seen a live story of both stars/crew and viewers alike sharing their excitement about Hairspray Live. The stars would record themselves doing vocal warm-ups, getting ready in hair and makeup, counting down to and motivating people to watch the performance, transitioning into scenes, and more. This made viewers feel like they were truly apart of the "magic" that is live television, feel like they were actually on set with the stars, and/or were behind the scenes. On the opposite side of the spectrum, viewers would snapchat themselves watching, reacting to, or dancing/sing along with the performance, giving a more relatable tone to such a big event. The point is that NBC was trying its best to reach out to people of all ages, especially us teenagers who may not all be interested, to join in watching this live showing of Hairspray, utilizing as many media platforms as possible to get our attention. That is what I call desperation.