Back To the Beginning
The idea for “Hair” began in the East Village, New York, when Gerome Ragni and James Rado met each other while looking for acting jobs. In the 1960s, the East Village was filled with artists, and new ideas were not hard to come by. Using themselves and their friends as a reference point, Gerome and James began to develop a musical about the hippie counterculture and the war in Vietnam.
A film still of “Hair” 1979. Photo by United Artists / Kobal / Shutterstock
They presented their script to Joseph Papp, who agreed to show it at his Public Theater off-Broadway. The show opened for the first time on October 17, 1967, and ran for almost 50 performances. Two months later, “Hair” was moved to the Cheetah nightclub, where it ran until January 1968. After moving to Broadway in April 1968, “Hair” went on tour all around the US and Europe and even ran for 1,997 performances in London.