Hair

Hair is a musical based on the book by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and the music of the play is given by Galt McDermott. Writers mention that their inspiration to name the play "Hair" came from a painting in Whitney Museum. The play basically revolves around a long haired group of hippies who are working against the recruitment of Vietnam War. The play has the element of illegal use of drugs, sexuality and nudity, pacifism and environmentalism, religion and astrology, literary themes and symbolism. It has a number of beautiful songs and some of them started being used as the Anti Vietnam War Peace Movement. The play was not without the criticism and controversy for the use of depictions of illegal drugs, sexuality, nudity, the musical blasphemy and its disrespect for the American flag. The tribal musical love story has made its way back into the Broadway with the same wonderful story and some awesome tracks like "good morning star shine", "hair", "Aquarius" and "let the sun shine in". The lyrics of the songs are given by James Rado and Gerome Ragni who also happen to be the writers of the book. Some of the songs also made its way to the Top 40 hits and several album recordings were released of the songs. The play was debuted for the first time in October of 1967 at the Joseph Papp's Public Theatre and made its way to the Broadway in 1968, running successfully for 1,750 performances at different theatres and then in United Kingdom , it also gained fame and ran for 1,997 times in different theatres with the same success.

The main characters of the play are Claude and Berger who are autobiographical characters. Claude is a romantic person and Berger is an outgoing person. In the Broadway production, the characters of Claude, Berger, Sheila, HUD, Jeanie, Crissy, Dionne, and Woof were played by Rado, Ragni, Lynn Kellogg, Lemont Washington, Sally Eaton, Shelley Plimpton, Melba Moore and Steve Curry respectively. In the London production, the role of the above mentioned characters were played by Sonja Kristina, Paul Nichols, Richard O' Brain, Melba Moore, Elaine Paige, Paul Korda, Marsha Hunt, Floella Benjamin, Alex Harvey, Oliver Tobias and Tim Curry. The play was featured in Joseph Papp's Public Theatre in New York City in 1967, in Biltmore Theatre in 1968, at Aquarius Theatre in Los Angeles, at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London in 1968, also in Munich in 1968, in Sydney in 1969, and also in Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Japan, Israel, Italy, Finland, Argentina, Brazil and Sweden. The play was features at the Reprise Theatre in 2001 in Los Angeles, and then at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park in 2007 in celebration of its 40th Anniversary. In 2009, the play was featured in Al Hirscheld theatre. The group of characters in the play is collectively called "the tribe". In the early Broadway production the stage was set in a way that it was exposed to audience and had no curtains. The set was painted in grey shades and there was street graffiti all over the set area. And there was a Native American Totem Pole, a Crucifix shaped tree, a papier mache bus driver, head of the Jesus and a tent of the Waverley Music Theatre in Greenwich Village New York City.

There are a number of songs in the play which makes it a musical and the songs of the play are Aquarius, Donna, Hashish, Sodomy, I'm Black/Colored Spade, Manchester England, Ain't Got No, I Believe In Love, Air, Initials, I Got Life, Going Down, Hair, My Conviction, easy To Be Hard, Don't Put It Down, Frank Mills, Be In, where Do I GO?, The Flesh failures, Eyes Look Your Last, The Bed, Good Morning Star shine, What A Piece Of Work Man Is, Three Five Zero Zero, Walking In Space, White Boys, Black Boys and Electric Blues. There are also a number of songs which were not included in the play for the want of less space and time in the musical. The show got international fame and after being played in U.S and U.K, it also made its way to other countries of the world. And yet again the play is on its fame because the tickets for the rock musical are out now with reasonable prices and convenient purchasing options. The schedule of the play is available on different websites as well as on the venue. The play as famous and entertaining as this is hard to miss!