HAIR
Civic Center Amphitheatre, 2019
by Gerome Ragni, James Rado and Galt McDermott
Music Direction: Emma Weiss
Choreography: Jennifer Lott, Brent Whitney
Set Design: Chris Dills
Light Design: Brian Elston
Costume Design: Jacy Barber
Sound: Ines Thiebaut
Props: Elise Curtis
Featuring: Danielle Burke, Max DeTogne, Hannah Eisendrath, Joshua Isaiah Foster, Rudy Foster, Madison Hertel, Sarah Beth Keyes, Lukey Klein, Maya Lagerstam, Daniel Lendzian, Aguel Lual, Katharine Mangold, Katherine Dillingham Mazer, Serenity S’rae Saffold-Rice, Mikhail Yarovoy
Selections from POV:
The goal of the 1967 original production of HAIR, which was born at the Public Theatre, was not exclusively to protest against the war/for civil rights but, like the flower children of the generation, “to find an alternative to the unacceptable standards, goals and morals of the older generation, the establishment” These writers and collaborators were introducing to the mainstream public the truths they had found on the streets, in the parks and in their communities: that there was a better way to live and better values to live by. In the face of violence, oppression and the danger of war, our parents were choosing to drop out, tune in and turn on. They had hope coursing through their veins—and big utopic ideas on how to fix things.
The challenge with trying to present these aspirational intentions is that we know all too well how history unfolded. Our generations experienced the AIDS crisis, the catastrophe of addiction overcoming our nation, the threatening effects of unaddressed climate change and an economy drained (and a giving culture therefore stripped of its former mid-century philanthropy)—not to mention the depressing decline into the Reagan-era conservatism and there onto an emergent swell of angry, disenfranchised, racist, intolerant citizens that would spread like a venereal disease.
The flower children of 1967’s HAIR have no idea what is going to happen; what’s worse, they have no idea that their utopic vision will peter out as they get older. They end the show in the garbage pile of their own making, simply leaving the party when it ends. Like a horrifying new version of a Billy Joel song: HIV, Reagan, Sandy Hook, climate change, drone wars, poverty, Trayvon Martin, Big Pharma addiction, and terrorism gently pile up around them. What is there to dance about?
