Hairspray — by which we mean the Broadway musical, which was inspired the Divine movie of the same name and in turn inspired the John Travolta movie of the same name — opened five years ago last night, and it's still going strong. (Stunt casting helps, sure — hello, Lance Bass! — but selling 101 percent of capacity, as it did last week, ain't bad.) A month before it opened, Susan Dominus previewed the show and essentially predicted a smash. "Everybody thought it was going to be the New York Times that would make it a hit," recalls Richard Kornberg, the veteran theater publicist who reps the show. "But when the New York Magazine put out this piece, that is the one article that put it through the top and sold Hairspray." To mark the anniversary, here's "Hairspray It On," from the July 22, 2002, issue of New York.

Hairspray It On [NYM]