Beverly Hills (September 16, 1998) ... Thirty years after it inspired audiences with its frank examination of war, peace and sexuality, the first major revival of the legendary rock musical Hair will embark on a multi-city United States tour beginning Spring of 1999. The landmark musical will be set within Hair, The Festival, a traveling performing arts center village that will host a multitude of entertainment activities and vendors. The announcement was made by Hair's original producer Michael Butler who, with Paul Leighton, serves as co-chairman of Tribe a Beverly Hills based management and venture capital firm.

In a kaleidoscope of theatre, restaurants, performance spaces, shops and clubs, Hair, The Festival will provide a comprehensive theatrical environment transporting the patron to a time and place that defined a generation. Conceived, developed and fabricated by the team of "Visioneers" at Tribe, Hair, The Festival will include: theatre performances, music, multi-media, spoken word, social activities, street scenes, and special events evocative of this definitive place in time and history.

"Our goal," says Michael Butler, "is to present with the author and composer of Hair, Jim Rado and Galt MacDermot, the best show ever of the hundreds of HAIR productions around the world. In the venue surrounding the theatre we will offer quality arts, crafts, and entertainments of the hippie era. Our audience, many dressed in the period, will bring together those who lived in that time with the young of today who want so much to know what that epoch of peace and love was truly like."

At the heart of the Festival stands a 1500 seat theatre that will house the musical. With book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and a score by Galt MacDermot, Hair broke new theatrical ground in 1968 and went on to captivate theatre audiences worldwide. This staging not only represents the 30th Anniversary of the show but also represents the first time the original creators have joined forces in its revival. Hair received two Tony Award nominations in 1969 for Best Musical Play and Best Director of a Musical Play for Tom O'Horgan. The Original Broadway Cast recording spawned 5 Top Ten hits including "Aquarius," "Easy To Be Hard," "HAIR," "Good Morning Starshine" and "Let The Sunshine In." "Hair" has also launched the careers of many notable actors including Dianne Keaton, Melba Moore, Keith Carradine, Joe Montegna, Meat Loaf, and Ben Vereen.

Set to open in the Spring in San Francisco, the tour is made up of 27 stops over three years. The tour will continue to follow the sun for its fair weather celebrations with stops in Portland, Seattle, Denver, St. Louis, Dallas and will then celebrate the dawning of the new millennium in Los Angeles. Other stops include: San Diego, Phoenix, Chicago, New York, Boston and Washington DC. Each stop will be about a month long "be-in" and will include 9 performances of Hair weekly in the main theatre tent of the 240,000 square foot compound. Tribe is currently in discussion with national presenters and sponsors.

According to Leighton, "I think there is a tremendous curiosity about the `60s and many people are still groping to understand what happened. We've created an environment that captures the spirit and sense of movement that decade embraced. Hair has never lost its relevance to audiences. As we contemplate our world entering the new millennium, this revival echoes the original 1968 message of the `great awakening'."

Tribe assembled a team of theatre and Hollywood artisans to accurately create a world evocative of the 1960's, including original Tony Award winning lighting designer Jules Fisher. From a sections of the festival duplicating Haight Ashbury and Greenwich Village, which can be viewed standing atop the scale model of the Brooklyn Bridge, to a multi-media retrospective created by Charles Kaiser (author of "1968") and narrated by Walter Cronkite, Hair, The Festival authentically recreates the sights and sounds of this historic era, including a local radio station broadcasting the stories and music of the decade.

Butler commented, "The challenge for us was not only to create something new, something never done before, but also to provide the public with a vehicle to experience theatre and art in a more meaningful, contextual way. Hair as a traveling `Festival Village' was our answer. We knew that a powerful piece like Hair in this environment could invoke the vision and passion needed to help us answer some fundamental questions."

"As we contemplated the new millennium and what that meant, we wanted to create an event of epic proportions, an event whose scope would be worthy of this historic milestone," added Leighton.

• Musical performances by both established & up and coming artists.
• Famous speech re-enactments from Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Timothy Leary and a host of others.
• Contemporary speeches by political & social activists, political figures, industry leaders and visionaries.
• Comedians, both known and unknown.
• Artisans and craftsmen drawn from a national, regional and local base.
• Open Air Street markets drawn from a national, regional and local base.
• Over 20 shops throughout the compound selling everything from tied dye shirts, headbands, beaded jewelry and lava lamps.
• Two full service sit down restaurants, located in both the Haight Ashbury and Greenwich Villages.
• Food service kiosks located throughout the compound.
• A complete line of festival merchandise available throughout the compound in colorful kiosk, converted VW buses and flower carts.
• A fully operational radio station re-creating the playlists of the era, news events and hosting patrons through the festival sites and activities.
• A full array of special events, parties, private functions, celebrations, seasonal events and more.

In addition to the traveling ensemble of core performers and vendors, Hair, The Festival will collaborate with local producers to create a unique and indigenous environment reflective of the city it is visiting.

Tribe is a full service management and venture capital organization that works in entertainment, media, technology and real estate. Tribe currently has many additional projects under development in these areas.