A great big dancin' star: energy and talent have made Marissa Jaret Winokur a hot new stage and TV presence.

Marissa Jaret Winokur doesn't look like a glamorous Broadway star. She's small and chunky, and not at all snooty. But Marissa, the original star of the hit Broadway musical Hairspray, has been front and center many times when the curtain has risen at New York's Neil Simon Theatre.

Marissa became an overnight star thanks to her exuberant dancing and singing when Hairspray opened in August 2002. The show takes place in Baltimore in 1962, and Marissa played a high school student named Tracy Turnblad. Like a lot of teenagers in 1962, Tracy rushes home after school every day and turns on her TV. Why? To see the latest dance steps on The Corny Collins Show. Before MTV, afternoon television shows like Corny Collins kept kids across the country up to speed on the newest hit records, the coolest clothes, and the hottest dances, like the Watusi and the Madison. And Tracy's dream is to be one of the dancers on Corny's show.

Marissa grew up in the suburbs of New York City, and her dream was always to be in musical theater. But her big talent was singing, not dancing. So before she could play Tracy, she had to improve her dancing. For three weeks before Hairspray rehearsals began, she worked on her moves with the choreographer.

"By the time the rest of the cast showed up," she says, "I wasn't nervous. We figured out what looked good on me, and what I could do well. I'm so comfortable in the show now, I could do the steps in my sleep."

The other kids make fun of Tracy when she tries out for Corny Collins. But she's such a good dancer that he picks her for the show, despite her extra-large dress size.

Marissa says she was a lot like Tracy in high school. She never let her weight keep her from doing things she wanted to do. "I was a cheerleader, I played soccer, I was on student council. It didn't faze me just because I was chubbier than the other girls," she says.

She was like Tracy in another area, too. "I hated class," she says. "I can't sit still. If I had been born ten years later, I would have been put on Ritalin." Despite her restlessness, she managed to get Bs. But she was always happier being in a school play than being in a classroom.

In the show, Tracy may be more interested in her hairdo than she is in her studies. But she's still smart enough to recognize injustice when she sees it. So she fights for racial equality on The Corny Collins Show. The American civil rights movement was just getting started in 1962. In the South, blacks and whites had separate schools, separate churches, even separate drinking fountains. Tracy thinks black teenagers and white teenagers should both be welcome on Corny Collins. "If kids saw us dancing together on TV," she says, "they'd realize that we're not so different after all."

Marissa's performance in the show brought her unexpected opportunities. She now splits her time between Los Angeles and New York, and she just starred in a TV movie called Beautiful Girl. In the spring, she'll be seen in a new TV version of Once Upon a Mattress.

Marissa says she loves Hairspray's message about acceptance. And it isn't just about understanding that people come in different sizes and races. Tracy's mom in the show is played by a man, the famous female impersonator Harvey Fierstein. In Hairspray, there are lots of ways to be beautiful.

who is a dancer?

If you love to dance, then you are a dancer. Whether you take ballet, tap, or Irish clogging classes every single day, bust some break-dancing moves on the playground, or choreograph dances to your favorite songs when no one else is home, it makes no difference. And as Marissa Jaret Winokur in Hairspray discovers, it's certainly not about the size or shape of your body. It's about how you feel the minute you turn on that music. We want to know how dance moves you. Tell us your story (and include your picture). We'll choose three of our favorites to print in an upcoming issue.

Sylviane Gold has written about theater for the Boston Phoenix, The Wail Street Journal, Newsday, and The New York Times.