TORONTO -- Still waters run deep, we are told -- but despite the fact that filmmaker John Waters is rarely still, he has a body of work that proves his eclectic talents run pretty deep indeed.

He's responsible for a string of independent movies such as Pink Flamingos, Polyester and Cry-Baby; a quartet of books; a one-man show titled An Evening With John Waters, and, oh yeah, a multi Tony Award-winning musical based on one of his hit movies, Hairspray.

Waters was in town yesterday to catch up with the Canadian production of the show, which opens at the Princess of Wales Theatre tonight.

"The characters I wrote are now mutating. It's completely spreading," he says enthusiastically.

And while there might be a filmmaker who would have difficulty letting go of his brainchild, it isn't Waters.

"They were mine," he says of the characters. "And I let them be adopted and I'm very involved with the adoptive parents."

It's easy to be sanguine, he suggests, when the quality of the stage treatment is so high, thanks to the team assembled by producer Margo Lion, who wasn't the first to option the movie for the musical stage, but ended up being the first to succeed.

"I went to the very first table reading and I thought: 'This could be a really big hit,' -- but I didn't say anything then," Waters says, adding that what really thrilled him was how well they captured everything he believed in.

"If I could have spent my life in theatre, instead of being a filmmaker, this is what it would look like."

He's even happy with Edna Turnblad, the character created by the drag artist Divine, who died shortly after the film was released. Waters thinks Divine would have found the whole thing, well, divine.

"From beyond the grave, he is proud," Waters says of his long-time collaborator.

"Alive, he'd want money or a part in (the play)."

It's all had the happy effect of reconciling Waters with the theatre, bringing him back to something he'd loved in his youth.

He rattles off the names of playwrights he's admired -- Tennessee Williams, Inge, Albee.

"All these people were my holy trinity when I was a kid," he recalls. "All these people saved my life."

But then, he fell out of love with theatre, particularly the musicals. "They were like aggressive Hallmark cards," he says dismissively.

Now that he's seen what can be done when the right people get their hands on his work, he's sold on theatre again.

"Cry-Baby is in development as we speak, right now," he reports proudly. "It's got everything (including) this great part for a young Ethel Merman with scars on her face.

"I was tempted to make every one of my movies into something -- a sitcom, an ice show ... " he continues.

Instead, he's contenting himself with making another movie. A Dirty Shame, starring Tracey Ullman as a woman turned into a sex addict by a head injury, is slated to open this fall.

At 58, Waters isn't slowing down, not worried that he's about to run out of madcap ideas.

"I worry about running out of people who will give me money for my ideas," he counters.

But even there, he's got it covered.

"I'm going to buy a Tilt-A-Whirl, 'cause I'm a carny at heart," he reports in apparent seriousness. "You just lie back and make a dollar a minute. Passive income, that's what I'm all about."


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