[Mb-hair] Re: A Few Questions

[Leo]

Guess I'll briefly toss in my 2 coppers worth Joe. In the 3 times I've 
directed HAIR I've never been able to get a black brother to even audition. 
And man it wasn't for a lack of trying. I sent out audition notices to all 
colleges in the area, to a coupla African American churches in Portland, to 
the NAACP, and to an organization here in Maine that is exclusive to African 
American performers (the name eludes me at the moment) and audition notices 
also went out to every theater list and publication of which I'm a member. I 
live in Maine and we certainly aren't overly loaded with black brothers & 
sisters but Portland is just up the road (about 40 minutes) and they have a 
large contingency of African Americans; it just didn't work out for me. The 
best I did one year was to get 2 black sisters in the tribe and the other 2 
years I had only 1 black sister. She played Hud and took all the appropriate 
lines (eg. "black & white go nice together...."). It wasn't the best case 
scenario, but it worked. So there's your gender switch! And 2 of the 3 years 
I directed HAIR I had a tribe of 14. As long as you have a lotta love, much 
camaraderie, and a kick ass band you won't go wrong.

PEACE,
Leo

> From: joseph.simon at fandm.edu
> Subject: Re: [Mb-hair] A Few Questions
> Yeah.  I know, and there are plenty of african americans on campus
> here who would be more than happy to play the role.  I was just
> looking at what else has been done that's all.  thanks for all your
> help!