HAIR
THE ERA-DEFINING MUSICAL KEEPS PROVING ITS FLOWER POWER
Closer looks back on the musical’s backstage secrets and enduring legacy for its 50th anniversary.
The night my father came to see the show we made hash brownies and we all performed with a buzz on!” recalls Keith Carradine, who played gentle hippie Claude a year into the 1968–’72 Broadway run of the groundbreaking musical Hair. His dad, Shakespearian actor John Carradine, slept through the show’s shocking nude Vietnamprotest scene, but he told Keith the play “was one of the most moving experiences I’ve ever had in the theater.” Created by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, “Hair changed Broadway,” says Sherwin Ace Ross, who played Claude’s wild friend, Berger, in a mid-’80s traveling revival. “‘Age of Aquarius’ and ‘Let the Sun Shine In’ defined a generation. It’s a movement for peace, love, freedom and it addressed racism.” Hair is still so relevant a live version will air on NBC in 2019. “The legacy of Hair is that youth has something to say,” Dale Soules, from original run, tells Closer, “and sometimes it’s the truest thing that can be said.”
“We need
Hair now more than
ever!” — Charles Valentino,
former Hair actor