ELLSWORTH — Well, for a wonderful three hours last weekend, anyone who attended the Ellsworth High School production of “Hairspray” became native Baltimoreans.

The cast of this fun Broadway hit musical, based on the John Waters movie, took their audience on a thrilling ride to the heart of that city in the ’60s and into the lives of some rebellious teenagers who discover something wrong in their corner of the world. In their case, it’s a segregated TV dance show and they decide to do something about it.

The unlikely heroine of this civil rights dance movement is a plump, little high school coed named Tracy Turnblad, whose quest to be accepted and win acceptance for others with different shapes, faces or races helps change her life and, as it happens, her world.

It’s rebel with a cause — and really big hair.

Last Sunday afternoon, cute Calli Carter who plays the effervescent Tracy, had us all at “Good Morning Baltimore,” in the show’s opening number.

Tracy’s enthusiasm about her hometown and her dream of becoming the star in her own life is infectious and pretty soon the whole town — represented by what has to be one of, if not the, best chorus ever to hit the EHS stage — are singing and dancing down the street with her.

It’s a fantastic start, and anyone who has ever watched the TV show “Glee” and thought, “Aw, come on, there’s no way real high school kids can sing and dance that well,” would be proven wrong, wrong, wrong by this gleeful crew of talented teens. From start to finish they wowed us with one fabulous production number after another.

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