Researching in the Performing Arts @ CCM

Piano-conductor's score (PDF download) to Hair (revised). Books & lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado. Music by Galt MacDermot. Produced for the Broadway stage by Michael Butler. Originally produced by Joseph Papp for the New York Shakespeare Festival Theatre. Original book © 1966, 1969, Gerome Ragni and James Rado. Revised book © 1995 Gerome Ragni and James Rado. New lyrics, dialogue, stage directions, revisions, and corrections by James Rado, 1995. Music corrections by Galt MacDermot, 1995.

PDF of full libretto. New York: Pocket Books, 1966.

Libretto. New York: Pocket Books, 1969. ON ORDER -- ADD TO RESERVE
CCM ML50.M1229 H32 1969 [Available on course reserve at CCM Library Circulation Desk]

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Below the recording track list is a plot synopsis with detailed observations about the staging of the original production.

Vinyl recording. "The original Broadway cast recording," starring Gerome Ragni, Lynn Kellogg, and others; conducted by composer Galt MacDermot.
RCA Victor LSO 1150, 1968, LP.
CCM Media LP 13443 [Available on course reserve at CCM Library Circulation Desk]

CD recording. Recorded Apr. 6, 2009 at Legacy Studios, New York. Sasha Allen, Allison Case, Gavin Creel, Caissie Levy, Darius Nichols, Bryce Ryness, Kacie Sheik, Will Swenson ; supporting cast ; band ; Nadia Digiallonardo, conductor, keyboards.
Ghostlight 8-4467, 2009, CD.
CCM Media CD 27800 [Available on course reserve at CCM Library Circulation Desk]

CD recording. 50th anniversary London cast recording. First performance at Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester, November 12, 2016; first performance at The Vaults, London, October 4, 2017.
Cast: Shekinah McFarlane, Andy Coxon, Liam Ross-Mills, Jimmy Kasongo, Robert Metson, others.
Silva Screen SILCD1568, 2019, CD.
CCM Media CD 42546 [Available on course reserve at CCM Library Circulation Desk]

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Live on the Ed Sullivan Show, Ed Sullivan Theater, New York, 1968. Original Broadway cast performed: "Aquarius" and "Let the Sunshine In".
On Black Music Archive LIVE! channel, YouTube, uploaded February 12, 2022.

DVD recording. Book & lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado; music by Galt MacDermot. Videorecording. MGM Home Entertainment, 1979. Screenplay by Michael Weller; produced by Lester Persky and Michael Butler; directed by Milos Forman.
Cast: Miloš Forman; Lester Persky; Michael Butler; Michael Weller; Miroslav Ondříček; Alan Heim; Stan Warnow; Gerome Ragni; James Rado; Galt MacDermot; Tom Pierson; Ann Roth; Stuart Wurtzel; Twyla Tharp; John Savage; Treat Williams; Beverly D'Angelo; Annie Golden; Dorsey Wright; Don Dacus; Cheryl Barnes (singer); Richard Bright; Nicholas Ray; Charlotte Rae; Miles Chapin; Melba Moore; Ronnie Dyson; Michael Jeter.
Fresh from the farm, Claude Bukowski arrives in New York City for a date with the Army Induction Board, only to walk into a hippie "happening" in Central Park and fall in love with the beautiful Sheila. Befriended by the hippies' pacifist leader, Berger, and urged to crash a formal party in order to declare his love for Sheila, Claude begins an adventure that lands him in jail, Central Park Lake and finally, in the army....
MGM Home Entertainment 907641, 1979, DVD.
CCM Media VID DVD 4 [Available on course reserve at CCM Library Circulation Desk]

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Live on the David Letterman "Late Show," Ed Sullivan Theater, New York, April 30, 2009. The Broadway revival cast performs "Aquarius" and "Let The Sun Shine In". On Letterman YouTube Channel, uploaded June 22, 2022.

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"Hair amounts to a two and one-half hour choreographed pajama party in which twenty-six young actors 'do their own thing' all over the stage and the audience. The music is electronic and deafening; the lyrics are in blank verse and often incomprehensible; the acting is enthusiastic even if it leaves not a little to be desired at several points. As one would expect, protest is much of what Hair is all about. ..."
Theology Today 26/2 (July 1969): 216-18.

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"I walked into Hair with the gravest doubts that this artifact of 1960s social shock would transfer to our current, sleepier times. In the 1960s we went to angry musicals; now we line up for "La Cage aux Folles." My doubts disappeared with the surge and bold authority of the first musical statement: This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!
... Milos Forman's "Hair" opens with such confidence and joy, moves so swiftly and sustains itself so well that I wonder why I had any doubts. "Hair" is, amazingly, not a period piece but a freshly conceived and staged memory of the tribulations of the mid-sixties."
Chicago Sun Times, March 14, 1979.

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Documents. Digital access to significant documents of the 1960s (arranged chronologically). Digital History platform.

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Exhibit section. Hope for America explores the time-honored tradition of American comedians commenting on the political scene in satires gentle and vicious that have entertained and rattled the political establishment. The exhibition surveys the involvement of entertainers, such at Bob Hope, in a wide range of causes and campaigns. During the stridently divisive 1960s, entertainers on opposite ends of the political spectrum stepped beyond the traditional performing stage to enter more directly into the political fray. Hope for America: Performers, Politics and Pop Culture, Library of Congress Exhibit.

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Trailers for film versions of selected iconic 1960s theatrical works alongside, and including, Hair (film version 1979). Digital History platform

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Photographs (102, in color and black & white). Scenes from the original Broadway production of Hair (1970). Martha Swope photographs, New York Public Library Digital Collections

Dissertation [PDF below]. Phd dissertation, University of Winchester (UK), 2018.
This thesis considers Hair as a seminal moment in musical theater history. In examining the work's social and historical contexts, the study explores ways in which Hair raises cultural consciousness through its approaches to representing marginalized identities on stage. Analysis illustrates how Hair considered America’s Others and in doing so, asserts that both race and gender are not fixed and are instead fluid, created in-process and in response to cultural influences. Exploring the intersections of race, gender, age, and popular culture, while using an approach grounded in critical musicology, the thesis illustrates ways that Hair can be considered as a form of rebellion, or resistance, enacted against the established traditions of the Broadway stage. The thesis argues that Hair is the product of a postmodern age. In considering how the theatrical "text" is reimagined beyond its original production, it further asserts that Hair has resonances that take on new meanings in altered contexts. This thesis ultimately proposes that Hair can be considered as utopian as a result of occupying a liminal space in the history of musical theater, placing those on the margins at the centre of its narrative. This work explores the varied and multiple ways in which Hair speaks to the urgency—and possibility—of social change.

Book. Abingdon, New York : Routledge, 2023.
This volume provides a comprehensive survey of the musical Hair and will offer critical analysis which focuses on giving voice to those who are historically considered to be on the margins of musical theatre history. Sarah Browne interrogates key scenes from the musical which will seek to identify the relationship between performance and the cultural moment. Whilst it is widely acknowledged that Hair is a product of the sixties counter-culture, this study will place the analysis in its socio-historical context to specifically reveal American values towards race, gender, and adolescence. In arguing that Hair is a rebellion against the established normative values of both American society and the art form of the musical itself, this book will suggest ways in which Hair can be considered utopian: not only as a utopian ‘text’ but in the practices and values it embodies, and the emotions it generates in its audiences.
CCM ML410.M117 B76 2023 [Available on course reserve at the CCM Library Circulation Desk.]

Article [click title to link to it]. Studies in Musical Theatre 12/3 (Dec 2018): 291-303.
In response to Elizabeth Wollman’s assertion that ‘despite its left-leaning approach to the many social and political issues it tackles, Hair is jarringly old-fashioned in its depictions of women’, this article instead proposes that Hair’s sung moments function as acts of resistance against the hegemonic, patriarchal values of musical theatre in both form and content. By adopting Annette Schlichter’s proposition of a ‘feminist phonocentrism’ which positions the voice as a ‘metaphor of agency and self-representation […] thereby allowing for an authentic self-presence’, the analysis presented illustrates a rejection of historical discourses that persistently link the female voice to an absence of social and cultural authority. With specific reference to songs from the score and their interpretations, this article celebrates ‘girl talk’ forming at the margins.

Essay [click title to link to it]. Ch. 7 in The Oxford Handbook of Musical Theatre Screen Adaptations, ed. Dominic Broomfield-McHugh (OUP, 2019), 150-81.
This chapter looks at the 1979 film version of the stage musical Hair (1968) and the very different political climates in which each appeared. The chapter describes the film as a radical rewrite but also regards it as remaining faithful to the central ideas within the 1968 Broadway show, even returning key elements of the first off-Broadway production, in 1967. Charting the musical’s journey from stage to screen in meticulous detail, the chapter reveals how changing priorities and changing media brought about important shifts in Hair as a work. In particular, the rejection of a draft screenplay by the stage version’s book writers Rado and Ragni in favour of a new text by playwright Michael Weller meant that Hair on the screen was no longer a song cycle, or concept album, but instead a completely new rendering by director Miloš Forman, who claimed to have ‘read’ political or social themes already present in the work.

Book. Lanham, MD: Applause Theater and Cinema, 2022.
Ginell's research of reviews and in-depth studies of production back stories draws on knowledge gained from 25 years as a theater critic in Southern California. His concise entry on Hair! provides essential background information.
LANGSAM Cohen ML1711.8.N3 G55 2022 [Available on course reserve at CCM Library Circulation Desk. PDF below for excerpt of Hair! entry.]

Book. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2021.
This fresh look at history-based musicals helps readers to understand the American story through one of the country's most celebrated art forms. Includes a chapter on Hair.
CCM ML1711.A64 2021 [Available on course reserve at the CCM Library Circulation Desk.]

Book. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991. ON ORDER -- ADD CALL #, UCLID LINK, AND ADD TO RESERVE
A reflection and symbol of the turbulent 1960s and the culture and lifestyles of the Hippies, Hair made history as the first rock musical on Broadway and one of the most successful musicals. Aside from bringing experimental techniques and rock music to Broadway, Hair, in this author's view, represented a major step in the evolution from the book musical to the first concept musical to reach mass audiences. Horn analyzes the social context of Hair and the Hippies, and describes the tenor of Broadway theatre of the times, as well as experimental trends Off-Broadway that culminated in Hair's innovations. She relates the dramatic story of Hair's creation and growth, clarifying actual events. The transfer of Hair to Broadway is fully detailed, and the Broadway production is compared with the earlier production at Joseph Papp's Public Theater with lists of song sequences provided. Several revivals and the film version are also discussed, with staff and cast lists as appendixes. Horn's extensive archival research is amplified by insights from numerous interviews, including with the authors, Ragni and Rado; composer, Galt MacDermot; Broadway producer, Michael Butler, and many others associated with one or more of the productions, as well as with theatre critics and theorists.
CCM ADD CALL # [Available on course reserve at the CCM Library Circulation Desk.]

PhD dissertation [click title to link to it]. PhD dissertation, City University of New York, 1982.
The rock musical Hair, with music by Galt MacDermot, changed substantially from its initial presentation at the Public Theater in 1967, through its stagings in Broadway and elsewhere, and to its 1978 film adaptation. Examination of the revisions as well as the critical and historical reception of the work shows that Hair was an authentic and accurate extension of the hippie movement. Theatrically innovative if not unique, its popularity derived mainly from social relevance, adaptability, and substantive appeal.

Newspaper feature [click title to link to it]. The Guardian, February 26, 2019.
Interviews of James Rado, co-writer, and Shelly Plimpton, creator of Crissy, remembering how Hair came together after 50 years.

Article section [click title to link to it. Scroll down to section 'What is "real"?'] Journal of Popular Music Studies 31/4 (2019): 32–50.
Many musicals, both leading up to and inspired by Hair (1967), attempted to claim their slice of the “real” by aligning themselves with rock’s emergent culture of authenticity and adopting what may be termed an “authenticist” approach: addressing hard realities, especially race, and drawing on “authentic” musical styles. Much might be said about this strand of musical theater history, but it will be especially instructive here to focus on hybrid blues numbers from two shows—Show boat (1927), the first American musical with a substantial afterlife, and Hair, the first critically and commercially successful rock musical to run on Broadway, where it moved in 1968—in order to explore the dynamic that governs theatrical presentations of authenticity.

Book. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006.
Contents include: The birth of the rock musical in New York City -- Interlude 1: rock "authenticity" and the reception of the staged rock musical -- Hair and its imitators -- Interlude 2 : audiences -- Rock concept albums and the fragmented musical of the 1970s. -- [...] -- Interlude 5 : merging aesthetics, making performances -- Rock-influenced musicals at the millennium : the dawning of the age of -- the revival.
CCM ML1711.8.N3 W65 2006 [Available on course reserve at CCM Library Circulation Desk.]

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AccuRadio: free internet radio. Popular music from 1968, including big hitters like the Beatles and Aretha, plus some "oh wow" surprises.

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This list is of Billboard magazine's Top Hot 100 songs of 1968. The Top 100, as revealed in the edition of Billboard dated January 11, 1969, is based on Hot 100 charts from the issue dates of January 6 through December 14, 1968.

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Audio clips (extended) of Billboard top 100 countdown for 1968 (reverse order).

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Video clips of top 100 songs presented in reverse order. Similar to the songs presented in the Billboard top hot singles listed above, but not exactly the same.

Article [click title to link to it]. Journal of the Royal Musical Association 143/2 (2018): 433-71.
Contrasting Hair!, an American Vietnam-era music-theater work, British music-theater works of the 1960s and early 1970s largely avoided direct engagement with contemporary political topics. The entanglement of Vietnam War activism and rock music forms the backdrop for analyses of two works that do address Vietnam directly: Anthony Gilbert’s The scene-machine and George Newson’s Arena (both 1971) – both of which also pass pointed comment on different popular-music traditions. Both works highlight the difficulty in emulating Brecht’s model in an era when the concept of the political was being significantly redefined, and the cultural gap between activist cadres and the wider population was unprecedentedly visible.

Book of essays. Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 1995.
Bridging the worlds of activism and academia - social movement theory informed with the real experiences of activists - this volume brings together insights from European New Social Movement theorists, US scholars of social movements, and activists involved in social movements from the 1960s to the 1990s. Contents include: Motherfuckers Then and Now: My Sixties Problem / Osha Neumann -- The Counterculture, the New Left, and the New Right / Rebecca E. Klatch -- "We Gotta Get Out of This Place": Notes toward a Remapping of the Sixties / Alice Echols -- Gay and Lesbian Experiences and Sensibilities in the Antiwar Movement / Mindy Spatt.
Langsam HN28 .C85 1995 [Available in course reserves at the CCM Library Circulation Desk.]

Book of essays. Toronto : Between the Lines, 2009.
This collection of innovative essays originates from an international conference held in 2007 to examine the many ways in which a 'global consciousness' was forged during the Sixties. In the collection, various sections examine ways revolution was imagined throughout the Sixties, the implications of the 'nation' for various liberation movements, the complex politicization of bodies during this time, and the enduring legacy of the period in terms of lasting political movements and cultural landscapes. Featuring a colour insert of protest poster art, this is the first anthology to bring scholars from many areas of the world together to discuss and debate the meaning and impact of these vastly transformative years.
Langsam D848 .N485 2009 [Available on course reserve at the CCM Library Circulation Desk]

Book. Syracuse, NY : Syracuse University Press, 2010. ON ORDER -- ADD UCLID URL, CHECK CALL # and ADD TO RESERVE
In this volume, the author synthesizes thirty years of research, writing, and teaching on one of the most turbulent decades of the twentieth century. Greene sketches the well-known players of the period—John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Betty Friedan—bringing each to life with subtle detail. He introduces the reader to lesser-known incidents of the decade and offers fresh and persuasive insights on many of its watershed events. Combining an engrossing narrative with intelligent analysis, America in the Sixties enriches our understanding of that pivotal era. Part of the series America in the Twentieth Century.
CCM E841.G65 2010 [Available in course reserves at the CCM Library Circulation Desk.]

Book. London : Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2018.
The Peacock Revolution in menswear of the 1960s came as a profound shock to much of America. Men's long hair and vividly colored, sexualized clothes challenged long established traditions of masculine identity. "Peacock Revolution" is an in-depth study of how radical changes in men's clothing reflected, and contributed to, the changing ideas of American manhood initiated by a 'youthquake' of rebellious baby boomers coming of age in an era of social revolutions. Featuring a detailed examination of the diverse socio-cultural and socio-political movements of the era, the book examines how those dissents and advocacies influenced the youthquake generation's choices in dress and ideas of masculinity. Daniel Delis Hill provides a thorough chronicle of the peacock fashions of the time, beginning with the mod looks of the British Invasion in the early 1960s, through the counterculture street styles and the mass-market trends they inspired, and concluding with the dress-for-success menswear revivals of the 1970s Me-Decade.
Cincinnati Art Museum Stacks NK4853 .H55 2018 [Available at Cincinnati Art Museum]

Book of essays [click title to find ebook link to it]. London: Routledge, 2018.
As the fiftieth anniversary of 1968 approaches, this book reassesses the global causes, themes, forms, and legacies of that tumultuous period. While existing scholarship continues to largely concentrate on the US and Western Europe, this volume focuses on Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Over 40 international scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds explore the global sixties through the prism of topics that range from the economy, decolonization, and higher education, to forms of protest, transnational relations, and the politics of memory.

Blog essay [click title to link to it]. Broadway: The American Musical blog, PBS website.
In the mid-1950s, Rock Music became the music of America's youth culture, while Broadway was considered parental music. Shows like Hair, and eventually The Lion King and Rent, moved away from the "Broadway Sound" and adapted the "Rock Sound."
The initial few paragraphs provide thoughtful context for Hair's initial and subsequent impact.

Book. Westport, CT : Greenwood Press, 2004. ON ORDER -- ADD UCLID URL, CALL #, and ADD TO RESERVE
The late 1960s and early 70s saw the flourishing of an American counterculture that affected many walks of society. The movement's music provided the soundtrack for this bellwether time in American cultural history. Such performers as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Arlo Guthrie, The Doors, John Lennon, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, and The Grateful Dead ushered in new sounds, as well as new attitudes and philosophies for an emerging generation. With vibrant narrative chapters on the role of music in the anti-war movement, the Black power movement, the women's movement, political radicalism, drug use, and the counterculture lifestyle, the author details the emerging issues explored by performers in the Sixties and Seventies. A chapter of biographical sketches provides an easily accessible resource on significant performers, recordings, and terminology. Also included are chapter bibliographies, a timeline, and a subject index. Part of the American History through Music series.
CCM ADD CALL #. [Available in course reserves at the CCM Library Circulation Desk.]

Book. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1984. ON ORDER -- ADD UCLID URL, CALL #, and ADD TO RESERVE
A history of folk and rock 'n' roll music in America during the 1960s reveals many reasons why these forms of popular music served as reflections of the decade's social, political, economic, and cultural changes. Includes playlists and reports on individuals and groups.
CCM ADD CALL # [Available on course reserve at CCM Library Circulation Desk.]

Book [click title to find ebook link to it]. New York : New York University Press, 2019.
In the late 1960s, protests led by students roiled high schools across the country. As school desegregation finally took place on a wide scale, students of color were particularly vocal in contesting the racial discrimination they saw in school policies and practices. And yet, these young people had no legal right to express dissent at school. It was not until 1969 that the Supreme Court would recognize the First Amendment rights of students in the landmark "Tinker v. Des Moines" case. A series of students' rights lawsuits in the desegregation era challenged everything from school curricula to disciplinary policies. But in casting students as "troublemakers" or as "culturally deficient," school authorities and other experts persuaded the courts to set limits on rights protections that made students of color disproportionately vulnerable to suspension and expulsion. "Troublemakers" traces the history of black and Chicano student protests from small-town Mississippi to metropolitan Denver and beyond, showcasing the stories of individual protesters and demonstrating how their actions contributed to the eventual recognition of the constitutional rights of all students. Offering a fresh interpretation of this pivotal era, "Troublemakers" shows that when black and Chicano teenagers challenged racial discrimination in American public schools, they helped remake American constitutional law and establish protections of free speech, due process, equal protection, and privacy for students.

Book [click title to find ebook link]. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
This book examines the American Sixties, and how that period's socio-political essence was reflected and refracted in certain forms of the period's music. Its five main chapters bear the names of familiar musical categories: 'Folk,' "Rock,' "Jazz,' "Avant-Garde,' "Classical.' But the book's real subject matter - treated at length in the Prologue and the Epilogue but spread throughout all that comes between - is the Sixties' tangled mess of hopes and frustrations, of hungers as much for self-identity as for self-indulgence, of crises of conscience that bothered Americans of almost all ages and regardless of political persuasion. Chapter 1: Prologue: The Sixties -- Chapter 3: Rock -- Chapter 7: Epilogue: Aftermath

Book. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006.
Contents include: The birth of the rock musical in New York City -- Interlude 1: rock "authenticity" and the reception of the staged rock musical -- Hair and its imitators -- Interlude 2 : audiences -- Rock concept albums and the fragmented musical of the 1970s. -- [...] -- Interlude 5 : merging aesthetics, making performances -- Rock-influenced musicals at the millennium : the dawning of the age of -- the revival.
CCM ML1711.8.N3 W65 2006 [Available on course reserve at CCM Library Circulation Desk.]