HAIR revival- Page 2

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 12:40pm

Unfortunetly a HAIR revival would be as relevant to todays times as a production of RENT. Both now exist as pictures of a time period.

The spirit of the original is impossible to be captured by actors who have BFA's in musical theatre from expensive division one private colleges. You can't play a hippie and have it be convincing. You must believe what you say. Same with a Boho.


The thing that makes HAIR wonderful at this point is the music and sadly thats all thats left. This generation of kids doesn't care enough to draw the comparison, and frankly outside of a just war I'm wondering if the paralell still exists. In the time of Myspace, which is owned by fox, the revolution may very well be dead.

Rado needs to stop trying to tinker with HAIR. Stupid songs like The Hippie Life and him trying to script a piece of performance art are what hurts this show.

I agree with Bennett, go back to the paperback release. Or dig up notes on the Cheetah production. But don't try to recapture the O'horgan because it can't be done.

What's the point of this rant? I don't know, anger probably. I love HAIR and I love it for what it is and what it shows, it's initial intentions and message against government,authority, religion and the music and because its still a wonderful companion piece for a nice fat joint on a hot summer day blaring out of the stereo you keep on the window facing the back lawn so you can lie in the grass and truly experience it. It is not a wonderful vehical for Shosana Bean and Eden Espenoza to ruin with their rediculous trills.

[BroadwayGirl107]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 1:06pm

"The spirit of the original is impossible to be captured by actors who have BFA's in musical theatre from expensive division one private colleges. You can't play a hippie and have it be convincing. You must believe what you say. Same with a Boho."

Are you an actor? I'll never understand why anyone who claims to be an actor (I'm not assuming you are, but I've heard this statement way too many times) could say anything along these lines. An actor's JOB is to believe what he's saying and to be immersed in the social and political climate of the piece he is performing in. Any actor worth his salt really shouldn't have a problem doing well in Hair. The roles themselves are not the greatest challenge for the American actor. The problem is the overwhelming majority of young people who act (which is what this show calls for) don't have the desire to do that much work, and many don't have the capacity to understand and embody it. But I don't think it's an impossibility so much as a sad reality about a lot of young "actors."

Did anyone see the production of Hair at NYU this past fall? It was an extremely bold concept to say the least.

[Pippin]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 1:06pm

The Prince music theatre in Philly will be producing this in May. I am not sure what version they are using, however, or if the director will bother trying to update or change things.


Hair at the prince

Posted: 1/20/07 at 1:10pm

A very small young theatre cmpany did it in Chicago two years ago-- it was going to run for 2 or 3 weekends but was so well recieved it ran on and off for months at 3 or 4 venues. I can't recall the theatre group, but they did it poretty straight-forwardly and all the reviews picked up on the Iraq/VietNam parallels. It worked.

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 1:53pm

Yes broadwaygirl I am an actor. And yes of course an actor must believe what he is saying. I guess I should have been clearer in my statement. The true spirit of a Hippie or a Boho is almost impossible for an actor to channel. In the original production most of the cast was living the hippie life due largely to the fact that the producers and directors of HAIR would walk up to hippies in Washington Square and Central Park and say "hey man, wanna be part of a happening?" For christsake members of the cast used to drop acid at places so they could peak during the Be-in and trip scenes. That kinda spirit is impossible to recreate! The problem lies or begins with even the term Hippie, which was created by the media to label the youth of the 60's. It was a term that was embraced and is how we all look at them now. The pitfal is playing the hippie and not capturing the ideals. Very hard for someone with a great entitled life that included dance and voice lessons as a child and a 4 year BFA education at a credible university. It's not raw enough, it's not real enough. The same problem exists with RENT. ON TOP of all this, people who were young and alive during the 60's are still out there and know what it was like and know what an imposter is. Flashing a peace sign while swaying back and forth and saying "yeah man" does not a hippie make.


Could I play a hippie? No. Could I do justice to a piece like Hair as an actor? Possibly, but only because of the way I was raised and what I was taught. Due to the fact that not everyone was raised by parents who were part of the 60's counter culture a modern production of HAIR would feature uneven performances at best.


HAIR isn't a musical, nor can it be played like one. Jazz sqaures and peace signs on trained dancers ruin the true intent of the show.

Updated On: 1/20/07 at 01:53 PM

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 1:57pm

"probably still the best rock score every written for the theatre"


Margo you are a font of knowledge and maybe this is just an opinion on my part, but wouldn't you have to admit that Hedwig is honestly the only true ROCK musical out there. HAIR runs through the musical genres of the period ranging from folk to Supremes type girl groups. Hedwig is the only show focused on ROCK music outside of Tooth Of Crime. But then again maybe you view both as plays with music?

And not only that but the minute you say "Rock Score" doesn't that immediatly make it un-rock and roll. Not that I don't love the music in HAIR, I just think Hedwig is closer to being true ROCK music than Hair is.

Updated On: 1/20/07 at 01:57 PM

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 1:58pm

Thats one of the reasons why I think if it is revived, its important to go back to HAIR Off Broadway which, in 1967, was more an examination of the counter culture movement in its earliest stages: before the whole really long hair, love bead, peace sign, tie-dye (i.e. cliched "hippie" stereotypes) came into play.

I do agree that actors running around trying to emulate the hippie lifestyle onstage and off (and I've certainly seen actors and directors working on HAIR do this) comes across as somewhat comical and only enforces everything "dated" about the show.

Updated On: 1/20/07 at 01:58 PM

[BroadwayGirl107]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 2:05pm

Then get actors who sing. Any actor worth his salt shouldn't have a problem with Hair--it's a spirit that can be connected with. I just might take a lot of work and research to even capture the spirit. Too many actors are too lazy or too pretentious to immerse themselves in something that may seem trivial to them. That's the problem, I guess. Most people today who WOULD take on the roles probably wouldn't be aware of the shortcomings of their own work. But can it be done? Yes.

"Very hard for someone with a great entitled life that included dance and voice lessons as a child and a 4 year BFA education at a credible university. It's not raw enough, it's not real enough. The same problem exists with RENT."
Off the top of my head, I know five of the right original RENT principles had BFAs. The cast was marketed as raw, but many were trained in their skills. They were still gritty enough.

I see where you're coming from; it seems as if no one today could get into the spirit of shows like Hair or Rent. But I think there ARE people; the whole thing has to be approached in the right spirit and with the proper care.

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 2:15pm

I agree with you Broadwaygirl, too many actors are lazy. I myself have a BFA too and I do think training is important. I guess what I should say, even at the risk of offending some, is that the life before the training shapes the actor. Someone from pretty picture perfect suburbia and yuppie parents is gonna have a harder time finding the right elements to pull it off than someone who has had to fight a little harder to get that training, to afford that education.

And yes you are right about RENT too. I know that Taye has a BFA from SU but, from growing up with/around the Diggs family, I also know where here came from and what his beginings were. The other thing about RENT is that the casts that are young enough now don't have the same starving artist/AIDS terror/Anti gay sentiment that the characters are going through. When the original production opened most of the current cast members were in Middle School or High School and far removed from the desperation/severity of the original painted picture.....but I digress.

I agree with the actors who sing comment, ESPECIALLY for the leads. The problem comes when you get to the ensemble and have the trained dancers and trained singers....well I'll stop right there. I guess you take the original Bennet approach to Company and cast Actors who can sing who are not at all dancers and severly cut the cast size of the show so you don't have this giant tribe/ensemble who do nothing but hurt the show with perfect,trained dance steps and moves. Cause no stoned hippie could pull off a beautiful Assemble in tight jeans.


One thing for sure. And this goes out to all people attempting Hair. Stop buying the "Hippie" or "Flower Child" costume from Arelenes and just go to Salvation Army. Not everyone wore tye dye in the 60's or had a giant afro.

Updated On: 1/20/07 at 02:15 PM

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 2:22pm

I agree. And look at these photos from HAIR Off Broadway particularly the actual "hair." It doesn't like much like most revivals today, which seem to think the show takes place at WOODSTOCK.



Updated On: 1/20/07 at 02:22 PM

[BroadwayGirl107]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 2:32pm

Carl, you make a lot of great points. I have to agree, the life of the actor pre-training is huge in shaping the actor. I still believe, though, that the right type of person to do a show like Hair still does and probably will always exist.

"One thing for sure. And this goes out to all people attempting Hair. Stop buying the "Hippie" or "Flower Child" costume from Arelenes and just go to Salvation Army. Not everyone wore tye dye in the 60's or had a giant afro."
Oh, AMEN. And Michael, that's along the lines of the look I've always thought of for Hair.

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 2:34pm

Thank you for those!!!

And look! No tye dye! Imagine that. My mother, a former flower child(as she prefers to be called and not hippie) costumed the show a while back and the tye dye was severly limited. Instead, as pictured above, most of the men were shirtless, in vests or military garb like the shirt Claude is wearing in the last picture, which is a much truer representation of the clothes of the time.

Yeah the rediculous bell bottoms and unnatural wigs, setting the show in 69(woodstock) is another aspect that hurts revivals. The important thing to remember in costuming HAIR is the influence the Native Americans and Military clothing had on how the kids dressed then.


Oh man, they are all soooo stoned in the first picture! Love it.

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 2:38pm

"I still believe, though, that the right type of person to do a show like Hair still does and probably will always exist"


Agreed, I just think that there aren't as many of us left anymore. Hopefully you are one of us Bwaygirl or that we are all one. It will get to a point when our children(our generation's kids) have children that act, that HAIR can be done again. Because by then it will be like a restoration drama. As I'm sure we've been playing Fops wrong, as any man from 1700's France would be glad to tell you in between pulls of snuff.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 2:38pm

I have always believed that the true test of "authenticity" for any show using music contemporary to its time is that if, outside of the show's context, the music is actually embraced by the public at large who are not, in the main, theatre fans. By that test, HAIR and a few other shows have succeeded.

The original cast album of HAIR is the last theatre album to top the Billboard Album chart. This was at a time when it was competing with new albums by The Beatles, The Doors, The Stones, Sly and The Family Stone, Janis Joplin, Simon & Garfunkel, The Supremes, etc. yet the kids buying albums at the time find it authentic enough that it was able to compete successfully against all of those seminal artists of that time. The album also spawned several top five singles recorded by popular artists of the day -- The Fifth Dimension's "Age of Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In" went to #1 for 6 weeks, The Cowsills' "Hair went to #2, Oliver's "Good Morning Starshine" went to #3, and Three Dog Night's "Easy To Be Hard" hit #4, all in 1969. The kids buying those songs and that album didn't give a damn about Broadway for the most part -- they thought it was great rock music -- period -- and bought copies by the millions, so I stand by my statement that HAIR is a great, truly authentic rock score written for the theatre.

Similarly, "Day By Day" from the GODSPELL cast album hit #13 on Top 40 chart and both Murray Head and Yvonne Elliman had charted hits with songs from JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR.

And say what you will about DREAMGIRLS having an authentic soul sound or not, but Jennifer Holliday's "And I Am Telling You" stayed at #1 on the R&B charts for 4 weeks and won Holliday a Grammy for Best R&B Female Performance (it also hit #22 of the Pop charts). And you can bet that 99% of the people that bought that single didn't care a whit about Broadway -- they bought it because it was an incredible R&B performance. It's also telling that the movie soundtrack has topped the Billboard album chart for two weeks in a row and a couple of songs from it are doing well on the singles chart.

HEDWIG is great and probably the only cast album I can remember ever seeing on jukeboxes in the East Village (which lean almost exclusively to alternative rock and punk, with a dash of hip-hop thrown in), but it never spawned a mainstream rock/pop hit. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a true rock sound -- it does -- but the fact remains that it was never embraced by mainstream rock fans of the late 90s to nearly the extent that HAIR was welcomed and enjoyed by rock fans of the late 60s (or that DREAMGIRLS was embraced by R&B fans in 1982, as well as now).

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 2:47pm

Point taken. By your classifications HAIR definitly wins with Dreamgirls as a contender for true Motown/Soul in a musical. I think the problem with HEDWIG was visibility. Hedwig is one of the few broadway albums that I have been able to play for friends and have them, outside of Sugar Daddy, remain clueless that it's a musical until I tell them.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 3:13pm

It's true. HEDWIG's score was really indistinguishable from much of what you heard on contemporary rock radio in those days (and even now). That's why it was able to do so well in the rock bars in the East Village -- the music blended seemlessly with everything else on those jukeboxes. I'm really hoping Steve Trask will write another score for theatre one of these days.

Updated On: 1/20/07 at 03:13 PM

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 3:49pm

Agreed or that he'll at least put a band(cheater) back together.

[NiteOwl]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 4:43pm

HAIR is one of my all time favorites.
I prefer some of the "rawness" of the material on the Original Off Broadway Cast Recording to the more polished versions on the Original Broadway Cast version.

[SDav 10495]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 4:54pm

In agreement with pretty much everything I've been reading. Hair is a very special musical for my family--it was the first Broadway show my parents saw together, and they still remember it fondly (my father even used to wake me up with his off-key rendition of "Good Morning Starshine").

I've grown to love the show immensely, and though I haven't yet had the chance to see a live production (I'm still kicking myself for being away during the Tisch production this October) and won't pretend to call myself a true "flower child" of any sort, I have read enough about and listened enough to the original incarnations, both Off-Broadway and at the Biltmore, to wince whenever I see pictures of tie-dye-and-afro-heavy revivals around the country and the world...which, really, has been the vast majority of them. The pictures Michael Bennett posted are exactly what Hair should look like, assuming you are going to maintain the Vietnam-era setting (which I think should almost always be done for the reasons others have mentioned in this thread). That look--costumes, sets, everything--coupled with what I know of the original Off-Broadway script could make for a stunning revival.

Just a note regarding the issue of having (oh no!) trained actors in any proposed revival cast...I do wonder how many replacement members of the original Hair tribes (from about 1969 through the early 1970s, both at the Biltmore and around the world) were trained. I know the majority of the "original" originals were really "hippies" from the Village, but I have to think that a good chunk who came after them had some theatrical training, especially when you consider that there were tribes in places like Paris, Buenos Aires, and Munich...at that scale, I can't imagine they worked solely with people pulled off the street. And yet that was the "true" Hair just the same. It seems to me, then, that the authenticity of the show really is much more about being true to the era from a creative standpoint, and is not necessarily about casting people who bathe infrequently and drop acid during intermission. I know it's practically impossible to truly recapture the spirit of those times when you're working with today's youth, but I don't think theatrical training is the culprit. I think the show would work as well today with degree-laden actors as it would with raw talent (provided today's actors were led by a creative team who could make them understand as much about the Vietnam era as possible). Just no riffing, please.

Updated On: 1/20/07 at 04:54 PM

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 5:25pm

In responce to your question SD. It is noted by many who were involved in the production aspect of the original HAIR that the show lost some of its magic as time wore on because of casting. After the first few casts they began casting only trained actors in all of the roles. It was then that the show became about playing a hippie and then putting on your fashion forward clothing and going to have drinks at Joe Allen's, and it was then that the writing was on the wall for the original production. Much like the last oh 5 years or so of RENT casts.

[Brodybaby03]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 5:40pm

I recently worked with Jim Rado on HAIR....he's talking about a workshop and then a purposed revival....
Look, I'm always hopeful....but...I'm skeptical...Jim, as I have learned from experience and heard from many others who've worked with him on similar "workshops" and "re-workings" on HAIR is a lot of talk and optimism that lacks any reality...

I think we could definitly use HAIR's message now more than ever but I only think it should be produced with the purest of hearts and intentions which I think sadly the current creative team lacks.

[SDav 10495]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 8:40pm

It is noted by many who were involved in the production aspect of the original HAIR that the show lost some of its magic as time wore on because of casting.

Oh yes, I probably should have mentioned that in my post...I have heard similar things, and would have figured as much because, as you say, it's true of Rent today. But here's why I think that doesn't matter, and why I think the level of training of a 2007 Hair revival cast wouldn't be an issue...

Imagine, say, 20 or 25 years down the road, when Rent will be long gone from the Nederlander and will have spawned a number of revivals around the world. Future-Me, someone who never saw the original Broadway cast live (and actually have seen a couple of Broadway casts that were just meh), will nevertheless think back to the Broadway production and say that these newfangled revivals just miss the mark completely (and most of them probably will).

Part of that is nostalgia, but I think a bigger part of that is simply the fact that I saw the original staging, original costumes, original lighting, original set, original orchestrations, all of which were the largely same as they were in 1996...what I will really crave is a revival that hits that 1996 bullseye creatively--not necessarily an ACL-like carbon copy, but something similar. If you're looking for an authentic representation of the era rather than a radical re-interpretation, I believe that original look and feel will go farther in terms of authenticity than will a futile search for "authentic" cast members 25 years later when the real deal just doesn't exist anymore.

Applying that thought back to Hair...if it were revived tomorrow, it wouldn't matter whether the cast was pulled from the fountain in Washington Square Park or from Tisch across the street--I still would never believe 100% that the people I'm seeing onstage are the real deal simply because it's 2007 and I just know they're not hippies. Period. So in that sense the "magic" of the original could never completely be recreated. However, what would make the production feel more real to me, someone who has read, seen, and heard a decent amount about the original Hair, is how well the creative aspect is pulled off. If that effectively recreates 1968 for me, it shouldn't matter whether the cast is all trained or not--the simple fact that the original Hair was (my God) 40 years ago prevents them from being authentic to begin with, so the most we can hope for is that a 2007 cast, whatever their background, would do their best.

Eh, this whole idea is in my head and I'm not sure how much sense it makes to anyone else, but...there it is. I've written too much already.

Posted: 1/20/07 at 9:37pm

SDav, too bad you missed the NYU production. I guess you heard the whole cast shaved their heads, and the set and the wardrobe was more or less all white. Hairless, colorless, unisex Hair.

It looked more like a Robert Wilson show at BAM, complete with slow-mo robotic Abe Lincolns walking in space. The only item of color was the American flag they folded into a triangle during "3-5-0-0."

They also punched up the score to give it a more emo edge, a modern rockish sound. But it was the same story, same war, same "Let the Sunshine In" ending.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 9:38pm

Sounds awful. Interesting but awful.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 10:04pm

^^Agreed!