MB Hair

I want to preface by saying I typically don’t direct a show by consensus or committee :-). That being said, I see this website and blog as an incredible resource for discsussion alternative ways of staging parts of HAiR, particularly when I realize that many of the people who watch this blog have seen many more productions of HAiR than I and may have seen interesting creative things that would be great to try to incorporate.Â

One thing I have been wrestling with is the age-old subject of “how to shed the clothes” for the end of Where Do I Go? The Broadway production utilizing the cloth scrim which covered up the actors momentarily worked well back when I saw it, although of the five performances I saw (two in NY and three in LA), at least one time I recall it being a bit clumsy. But those are also 38-40-year old memories, prone to weakness :-).Â

Our theater is much much smaller and there may be insufficient room for people to be on stage under a scrim. Also, the tribe will be so close to the audience that it won’t have the “sweeping” impact that it did on a much bigger theater. Instead, I am concerned that it will look silly. I chatted with Tom Prokofsky after his performance at Fullerton College last Friday night and we tossed around a few ideas, but I am interested in hearing other ways people have seen it done. I have two thoughts (and I am not committed/wedded to either at this point):

1. Have the clothes removal done during the swirling dancing of the Be-in. Then as the lights change for Where Do I Go, have the performers huddle (not frontal nudity at this point) with each other. Then at the end, as the conclusion of the song occurs, have the performers turn out toward the audience.

2. Same point of time for the removal, but add a “nude” ballet/dance to Where Do I Go. I believe I saw a mention in one of the photo archives here of James Rado (or maybe it was Ragni) wanting to have a nude dance (I believe he called it “the naked dance” ;-)) during this part of the show.Â

Again keep in mind again we have a very small stage with a limited audience capacity of about 150.  The audience will be about 10 feet from the performers min/30 feet max so it will be very intimate. Where often things have to be overdone to communicate them from the stage, here it more about making sure you don’t rub their noses in at, at least when you aren’t trying to do that.

The forum is open!

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Jon “bleurose” Rosen
Stagelight ProductionsÂ

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