With protest becoming mainstream in today's political climate, the spirit and message of the groundbreaking rock musical Hair is a timely choice for Muhlenberg's Summer Music Theatre.
When it premiered on Broadway in 1968, Hair was not only the first rock musical and one of the first Broadway productions to have a fully integrated cast, but it challenged audiences with its celebration of counterculture and use of nudity. One clergyman in Minnesota even tried to drive audiences away by releasing white mice into the lobby.
Hair follows a group of young hippies known as the Tribe, squatters in New York City's Central Park, as one, Claude, tries to decide whether to answer his draft card or burn it. There's a bit of a love triangle with Claude and Sheila, an NYU student war protester, but Hair is not really a plot-driven story. “It's more of a song cycle,” says director and professor of theatre at Muhlenberg, James Peck. “The pleasure of it is in the sound-track, just great rock song after great rock song.” Even without having seen the play, songs like “Hair,” “Aquarius” and “Good Morning Starshine” still reach us through popular culture.
Though long-haired hippies have taken on a quaint and tarnished image over the last half decade, Peck says Hair was and is “a throwdown, challenge and a celebration. The musical really admires the spirit of freedom and collectivity that unites them in opposition to the powers that be.”
Set in an abstract cityscape, Muhlenberg's production will be full of the colorful costumes of the period and make use of students as well as community members and professionals to fill out its cast and crew. Revisit a time and experience when the protest spirit was loud and bright and shook things up!
June 14- July 2 | $20–$41 | 2 & 8 p.m. | Muhlenberg College | 2400 Chew St., Allentown | 484.664.3333 | muhlenberg.edu
