[Mb-hair] Re: Harrises and HAIR at La MaMa

[Michael Harris]

Thank you so much Jeffrey!  That's the best review we ever got.

It was great to meet you and to feel emboldened by the afterglow of the previous week's HAIR event.  Having Michael B. and Tom O. and you and Marjorie and others there in person made the connection complete.  

My father (who spoke first) is 84 years old and first directed for La MaMa in 1962 - 43 years ago.  My youngest sister was only three when she made her La MaMa debut, and I was twelve.

The family worked hard to craft an outline for the afternoon.  I mentioned to Tom O'Horgan at the intermission that it felt a little disjointed (our show) - and dear Tom thought for a moment and said, "well, so is life!"  Tom made it all OK with simple wisdom and heart.  Tom and I did two shows together at La MaMa prior to HAIR.

After the show on Saturday, Michael Butler joined us over at Phebe's and we had time to chat and get caught up.  I was very glad my parents and siblings got to meet Michael at long last.  That evening I went back to La MaMa to catch Ellen Stewart's newest interpretation of Greek mythology.  It's a fantastic show, catch it if you can.

I'm sorry that my schedule will not permit me to join the larger group that's going up to Bridgeport in a few weeks but I will attend a HAIR performance there by Friday and I'm really looking forward to it.

Peace and love,

WMH and family

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Message: 1
Date: Sun, 01 May 2005 22:53:59 -0400
From: Jeffrey Lunger <jlunger at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Mb-hair] Harris family rocks!
To: <mb-hair at islandlists.com>
Message-ID: <BE9B0E87.16CC%jlunger at earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

For those of you who couldn't make it on Saturday to see WMH and his tribe at
the LaMama series let me tell you it was great!  The amount of love exuding
from that family is incredible!  Not only were we regaled with stories of
the early days of avant garde theater, we got song & dance from the Harris
sisters as W M played piano and sang (among other Harris compositions) a sad
and beautiful song about Hibiscus that their mother wrote (she also wrote
songs for Hibiscus' nightclub act!)  An audience singalong of Good Morning
Starshine, and they brought everyone on stage after.  Michael B Tom O ,
Marjorie Lipari and of course Michael Arian, (who has done a great job to
help put this series on!) were all present.  I left the place feeling very
happy.  A lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

Jeff