Gerome Ragni and James Rado
Book and Lyrics

Take one actor who's appeared on Broadway in Hamlet, add another who's been seen in Luther and The Lion In Winter, unite them off-Broadway in The Knack, and what happens?  The biggest musical blockbuster to hit the American stage since My Fair Lady.

The actor-writers, who are known to the hip community around the world as Jerry and Jimmy, Gerome Ragni and James Rado look like they've lived the roles that they created for themselves.

It was early in 1967 when the links began to close on what would eventually become HAIR, America's tribal-love rock musical, a major first and a turning point in the course of the Broadway theatre.

Ragni, who's exploding reddish-brown locks may have started a new world trend, says "We started writing this play because we were both actors and we were tired of the kinds of plays we were in.  The same one-dimensional characters, the conventional entrances and exits.  We didn't want to "act" these plays.  We wanted to "be" on a stage."

Rado, whose blond hair is now a year and a half longer than when he first joined forces with Ragni, explains further, "We weren't the first who thought of the idea of "being" on the stage, but it's true.  We used to act and when we'd leave the theatre we'd go back to a scene that had nothing to do with the stage - the kids on the East Side.  We wanted to show this on a stage.  So we started taking notes.  We wanted this play to be on Broadway, because we wanted to reach the widest audience possible.

When Michael Butler took over as HAIR's producer, he brought in the magical touch of a new director names Tom O'Horgan, gave Ragni and Rado the freedom to re-write the show the way they originally planned it, and presented the final result at Broadway's Biltmore Theatre, with Ragni and Rado playing the two leading roles of Berger and Claude.  The applause and excitement of that opening night still rings in their ears.

"We're always adding new things to the show," says Ragni, "and you're liable to see us show up as actors in almost any HAIR production in the world.  We now have that written in our contracts.  But we won't be in HAIR indefinitely because we have a new show to write."

"If we do another play on Broadway" adds Rado, "we want to do it a different way, apart from the traditional way of doing things."

Should HAIR continue its tremendous new influence on Broadway, the tradition they have to break may well be there own.
 

Galt MacDermot
Composer

A glance at the back of a HAIR playbill, where you would normally expect to find several credited and detailed "Who's Who's" will instead reveal a half inch of space which reads simply:

"Galt MacDermot (Composer) piano player, organist, choir director, African and love-rock musicologist."

It is probably the shortest biography of all time, considering the fact that its subject, Galt MacDermot, is the composer of what has become the most phenomenal musical success in the annals of The Musical Theatre.

The simple facts are that he was born in Canada.  His father, a Canadian diplomat, was assigned to South Africa, where galt studied music for four years.  He concentrated on jazz upon returning to Canada and spent a year or two "in England" playing rock and roll.

In 1963 he won a Grammy Award for his work on "African Waltz", followed by another Grammy this year for HAIR.

MacDermot confides that he didn't approach HAIR with any idea of writing for Broadway.  "I hadn't seen that many shows," he says, "but those I did see seemed formalized and pointless."

His interest in rock music led friends to introduce him to Ragni and Rado in January 1967.  Ragni and Rado had written the book and lyrics for HAIR, they had a producer who was interested in their show for the New York Shakespeare Festival, but they had no music - until they met MacDermot.

"I read it and thought it was good," he says. "I don't know if I thought it was funny, but I liked it.  There was something "nice" about it.  So I wrote fast enough so that in two or three weeks we had enough to take to Joseph Papp, Shakespeare Festival producer.  He liked it, and the next fall HAIR made its debut in a limited engagement off-Broadway.  We soon needed a new home, however, and Michael Butler came to the rescue, giving us a creative freedom we hadn't had before and the aide of an incredibly talented director, Tom O'Horgan.

"I don't think all musicals have to be like HAIR," he says, "but if you come up with an idea as fantastic as Jim and Gerry's idea, and treat it as genuinely, you'll come up with a successful show.

"You know, I've always written this kind of music and nobody ever wanted it.  I was always made to feel that it was the wrong kind of music.  Now I just want to keep on writing."

Galt MacDermot will never have trouble getting people to listen again.
 

Copyright Natoma Productions.