“Hairspray,” the Tony Award-winning stage musical now being staged by D2 Productions, focuses on teenagers in 1962 Baltimore; and as the show’s title suggests, their larger-than-life hairstyles play a big role.

In fact, the bouffant styles caused director Kyle Farr to say, via e-mail, that the show’s biggest challenge involves “figuring out how to make everyone’s hair so big! We have been looking high and low for wigs to obtain the big hairstyles everyone knows. We have found what we need though through the joys of the Internet.”

“Hairspray,” in its first incarnation, was a 1988 film by John Waters about a likable, chubby young girl named Tracy (played by Ricki Lake) who breaks barriers first by earning a regular spot on a locally-produced teen dance television show, despite not looking the part; and then by pushing to racially integrate that same program.

The stage musical adaptation — with music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman, and book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan — premiered on Broadway in 2002, and went on to win eight Tony Awards, including best musical. (The musical was then adapted for the screen in 2007, in a film starring John Travolta, Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah, and Zac Efron.)

“Hairspray”’s most famous songs include, “You Can’t Stop the Beat,” “Good Morning Baltimore,” “Without Love,” and “Run and Tell That!” For the songs, D2 will use, like the national tours do, a professional backtrack that features a recorded live orchestra.

But local theater fans will have two chances to hear them performed live, since D2’s production begins on the heels of Pioneer High School’s “Hairspray.”

“'Hairspray' is a very popular show, so we knew this was a possibility,” said Farr.

As to why the musical hit such a nerve, and continues to be so popular with audiences, Farr said, “It has a message of acceptance of the people around you. Today's society still fights battles of acceptance. The message of ‘Hairspray’ is that we are all people, and should all accept each other for how unique we are.”

Jenn McKee is the entertainment digital journalist for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546, and follow her on Twitter @jennmckee.