From the New York Times, Sept. 29, 2009, By PATRICIA COHEN
Photo by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Most of the “Hair” cast will attend the National Equality March in Washington on Oct. 11.
Playwrights and producers have used scathing commentary, heartbreaking drama and sharp satire to score political points about war, torture, presidents, AIDS, race relations and women’s rights with New York theater audiences. Now the Broadway musical “Hair” is expanding the concept of stage activism by taking to the streets and urging audiences to follow. The producers canceled a Sunday matinee so that the cast and crew could attend and perform at a march for gay rights in Washington on Oct. 11.
Most of the “Hair” cast will attend the National Equality March in Washington on Oct. 11.
That unusual — and expensive — decision to skip a popular weekend performance at the beginning of the theater season originated with the show’s star, Gavin Creel.
“I said, ‘My God, we have to go, we have to go,’ ” Mr. Creel recalled when he first heard about the rally late last spring.
Although Mr. Creel, 33, stars in a show that is associated with ’60s-style activism and sexual liberation, he personally wasn’t much interested in politics before Barack Obama ran for president. On Election Day last November, he said, he was ecstatic that his candidate won, but was crushed by the victory of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California. So he decided to help create the activist organization Broadway Impact to mobilize the theater community.
Then in May Mr. Creel met Cleve Jones, creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, when he came to see “Hair” with Dustin Lance Black, author of the Oscar-winning screenplay for “Milk.” At a party afterward for the release of the cast recording, they all talked about the Oct. 11 National Equality March that Mr. Jones was helping to organize. The rally’s organizers say they are seeking “equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states” for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people.
About a half-hour later Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater, a producer of “Hair,” showed up and Mr. Creel immediately cornered him to ask if the whole tribe — the show’s term for cast — could go down for the march.
“I told him, ‘That’s a crazy idea,’ ” Mr. Eustis remembered. He walked away, but the idea stuck. What would be the ramifications, financial and otherwise, of closing one matinee, Mr. Eustis wondered. It was 11:30 at night, but he sought out the show’s general manager, Joey Parnes, to ask what he thought, and Mr. Parnes went to the box office to check on how many tickets had already been sold for that date and to run the numbers.
Still, Mr. Eustis said he doubted that the handful of major producing partners would go along with what he considered a radical idea. “We geared up for a fight,” he said, “but to my surprise, everybody was in favor of it.”
Mr. Eustis’s conclusion is that at the heart of “Hair” is a political message about equality, justice and freedom, and that everyone involved “knew what they were signing up for.” The Sunday matinee was canceled and a Monday-evening performance on Oct. 5 was added. Ticket-buyers could trade in their seats for another performance or get a refund. The cast and crew were essentially given the day off, although, as it turns out, Mr. Creel said he thought that nearly everyone in front of the curtain and many who work behind it plan to go to Washington.
An average Sunday matinee brings in between $100,000 and $150,000, a spokeswoman said, although the final cost to producers will ultimately depend on how many tickets the added performance sells.
Mr. Jones said that he was amazed when he heard the news a week later: “I was ecstatic. I couldn’t believe it.”
Blunt appeals from the stage to attend the rally seemed inappropriate, but during the final number, when the audience is invited to dance onstage, cast members now hold up homemade signs about the Oct. 11 rally that say: “Our tribe is going. Are you?”
At the same time, Broadway Impact is organizing at least 20 free buses to take people from New York to the rally and back. Performers like Sutton Foster, Audra McDonald, Jonathan Groff and Neil Patrick Harris, as well as the casts of “Hair” and another Broadway musical, “Memphis” (opening Oct. 19), have each donated the $2,400 needed to rent a bus.
The tribe will be on one of them. “We get on the bus at 11 at night after the show and get there in time for the sound check at 4:30 in the morning,” Mr. Creel said. The added Monday performance means the cast will perform 16 shows in a row without a break.
The director of “Hair,” Diane Paulus, said she remembered the first day of rehearsals before the show was performed for free at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. “These young people were sitting around asking how can I portray a hippie activist? We’re the apathetic generation,” she said. “Flash forward two years and the actors are now living the message of the show in their real lives.”
Click to watch video and blog posts from Broadway Impact.
Click to return to the main page for the National Equality March.
