My Conviction

A couple years ago I got an email from a woman named Pola Rappaport, who said she was making a documentary about Hair. She had read my book, Let the Sun Shine In: The Genius of HAIR. Long story short, she and her partner Wolfgang Held, flew to St. Louis to interview me for this film.

Flash forward a couple years. I finally get a copy of the film on DVD from Pola just in time to show the tribe early in the rehearsal process, and it was soooo helpful for them to see what we were aiming at, what the finished product looked like, what the motivations behind it were, what the original production was like, all that stuff. It gave them a head start in understanding this wild show that the earlier Osage tribes did not have.

And yes, it was cool showing them this documentary about this history-making, theatre-redefining show, when every 20 minutes or so, my face would appear on screen. I'll admit it. It was fun.

Today, I get an email that the film (first released in Europe) is finally available in the U.S., from Alive Mind Media. I highly recommend this film. It has quite a lot of archival performance footage, interviews with a lot of the people involved with the original, and it does an amazing job of placing the show in its historical, political, and social context (which was mostly my role).

Kinda cool...

And while I'm blogging, I'll add this tidbit. I just talked with Metrotix and couldn't believe what they told me. A normal show for us sells 100-150 tickets for the run before we open. Our previous pre-sale record was Urinetown, which sold about 220 seats before we opened. But this production of Hair has already sold 386! This first weekend is still pretty light, but we hope for a lot of walk-up. I'll say it again -- get your tickets early!

On with the Groovy Revolution!
Kerouac