Hair (musical)

Hair, subtitled The American Tribal Love/Rock Musical, is a musical about hippies and was a significant part of the drug, music and peace-love culture of the 1960s. It is renowned for originally being performed with all the players totally naked in some scenes. It was written by James Rado and Gerome Ragni (lyrics), and Galt MacDermot (music). The original cast previewed a few performances at a go-go club called The Cheetah. It premiered off-Broadway, with much fanfare, as the inaugural performance of the Public Theater, on October 17, 1967, and moved to the Biltmore Theater on Broadway on April 29 1968 where it stayed for 1,472 performances. It opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London on September 27 1968, continuing for 1,998 performances until closure was forced by the roof collapsing in July 1973. It went on to stage productions across the world and continues to be performed today.

Players

• The original New York "tribe" (i.e. cast) included James Rado, Gerome Ragni, Shelley Plimpton, Kim Milford, Melba Moore, Paul Jabara, Ben Vereen, Meat Loaf, Jobriath, and Diane Keaton (in a minor role) .
• The original London tribe included Paul Nicholas, Richard O'Brien, Melba Moore, Elaine Paige, Tim Curry, Marsha Hunt, and Alex Harvey.
• The original Berlin tribe included Donna Summer.
• A special benefit performance of the show was performed at the New Amsterdam Theater in New York City on September 20, 2004. The tribe included: Shoshana Bean, JM J. Bullock, Liz Callaway, Gavin Creel, Harvey Fierstein, Ana Gasteyer, Annie Golden, Jennifer Hudson, Jai Rodriguez, RuPaul, Michael McKean, and others.