[Mb-hair] Re: Our HAIR

[Barbara Siomos]

Dear John...

Thank you so much for sharing your feelings on HAiR in your personal
life and the show. It is/was a life altering event for many people in
the late sixties and on til today.

I am sorry I missed your show and you will find many others on this list
who will/do feel the same way.... You did a great job in describing the
events of the show and the audience reactions....  :-)>

Thanks again.
peace,
barbara
>Date: Mon, Oct 4, 2004, 10:56am (EDT-3) 
>From: Michael Butler
><michael at michaelbutler.com> 
>To: "Shearin, John D"
 
Dear John,
 
Thank you so much for taking the time to write us about your experiences
about HAIR. I am sorry to have missed what you have done with the show.
I do hope that you will stay on the HAIR List as a subscriber to keep in
touch with this extended family of tribes. We all have the same concern
for what is happening nowadays.
 
Peace and Love,
Michael
 
--Those who have experienced altered forms of consciousness, by whatever
means, never forget that space in which they have been. Now that they
have learned how to function within the system, it is time they act to
run it. MB
 
>Dear Michael Butler and Galt MacDermot;
 
As director of the ECU/Loessin Playhouse production of HAIR, I'm writing
to tell you gents what a great pleasure it has been to work on this
beautiful show. A Vietnam vet, I got out of the Army in 1968, as the
HAIR phenomenom was coming into full flower. That summer, a college
student at William and Mary, I was in an outdoor drama in Williamsburg,
Virginia and every Saturday night, after the last performance of the
week, we would have a big cast and crew party in our hilltop picnic
shelter in the woods surrounding Lake Matoaka Amphitheatre. The ultimate
happening of the night was always to put on the HAIR recording (original
B'way cast on vinyl) and have our own version of a be-in, well-lubed
with cheap beer, Boone's Farm/Ripple, and/or various mind-altering,
vegetable-based roll-your-owns. It was an occasion of great joy--singing
along with the original cast, dancing wild-and-free in various stages of
consciousness and undress--that stayed with me lifelong. Later, after
grad school, as a fledgling actor in New York in '73-'74, I was a waiter
at Sobossek's down on Cooper Square, and a participant in the thriving
East Village Theatre scene, where I got to meet Ragni, Rado, Tom
O'Horgan, and several of the original cast members--a crazy and
wonderful group of creative folks. So now, thirty-six years later, an
aging boomer, I decided to direct and produce the show at our university
theatre, not for reasons of nostalgia but because the show seems to
speak directly and clearly to current times, resonating loudly with the
Vietnam era. It was a very good decision, if I may say so myself. Our
student performers embraced the material wholeheartedly and our Tribe
(the Nez Perce, in memory of Chief Joseph) developed a coherence and
commitment to the work that has been exemplary. If "jump-up" standing
ovations, cheers, and completely sold-out houses are an accurate
indicator, the production has been a great success with audiences, as
well. Nightly, we are transported both to the past and to the future, to
times when we could believe that love could steer the stars and the
world could be lit by joy, not by the glittering malice* of the present.
 
So, thanks, Michael, Galt and all the other progenitors of HAIR. 
--John Shearin
 
* "glittering malice"--accurately and beautifully-coined phrase by
Garrison Keillor in Homegrown Democrat
 
John Shearin, Director
School of Theatre and Dance
East Carolina University
Greenville, NC 27858 
tel: 252-328-6390

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