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You've all heard about Hair, right, that hippie play with all the naked people?  That avant-garde off-Broadway (sic) version of free love, seasoned with pot?

It's a shame that's what most people have heard and read...and little else.  The reality of hair is so much more than hippies set to music.  The play attempts (and usually succeeds) in capturing the free spirit of disenchanted, enchanted young people who drop in to their own way of life.  The songs celebrate freedom and poke fun at Establishment values, and dances don;t resemble Broadway production numbers; the dancers resemble real people with energy.

In these photos the Los Angeles cast of hair grapples, sings, and generally carries on to the delight of the cast itself and the audience.  The three girls are spoofing the Supreme Motown genre in a song about white boys (while three white girls across the stage rave about black boys.

Perhaps the strangest thing about Hair is the audience - lots of minks and dark suits and ties - an audience which, at first glance, won't and perhaps can't identify with the people on stage.  Some of the sudience never does get the spirit, but some do, some manage to overcome the mink and the suit barriers and have a good time, and perhaps, hopefully, accept and tolerate the freedom inherent in the thought behind the play.

The universality of hair and its message has traveled from off-Broadway to London, Stockholm, Munich, Copenhagen, and Los Angeles; productions are planned for San Francisco, Chicago, Mexico, Japan, Australia, Canada, Italy. Hippies and hair are just about everywhere.

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