Review Roundup- HAIR Tour

The Public Theater's new Tony-winning production of HAIR is now on tour, currently playing the Pantages Theatre.

HAIR won the 2009 Tony Award for Best Musical Revival as well as the Drama Desk, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle award for Outstanding Revival of a Musical. The HAIR cast recording was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album.

The cast will feature members from the recent Broadway production of HAIR including Steel Burkhardt as Berger, Matt DeAngelis as Woof, Kaitlin Kiyan as Crissy, Darius Nichols as Hud, Paris Remillard as Claude, Kacie Sheik as Jeanie, Nicholas Belton, Larkin Bogan, Allison Guinn, Josh Lamon, John Moauro, Kate Rockwell, Cailan Rose, Jen Sese, Lawrence Stallings and Lee Zarrett. Additional HAIR alumni include Phyre Hawkins as Dionne and Caren Lyn Tackett as Sheila.

The cast will also feature newcomers Shaleah Adkisson, Emily Afton, Corey Bradley, Marshal Kennedy Carolan, Laura Dreyfuss, Mike Evariste, Lulu Fall, Tripp Fountain, Nkrumah Gatling, Christine Nolan, Emmy Raver-Lampman and Tanesha Ross.

HAIR is directed by Diane Paulus and choreographed by Karole Armitage. HAIR features a book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado and music by Galt MacDermot.

Michael L. Quintos, BWW: "From the start of the soulfully gorgeous "Aquarius," and through a rapid-fire succession of humorous, outlandish rock ditties that include odes to "Sodomy" and "Hashish," these beautiful creatures' main motivation is to entertain its audience, while dropping a bit of peace, love and knowledge in our laps. The show asks us to care about these young people, and quite easily over the course of the show, we do. Probably the most interactive, audience-participatory version of this musical I have ever seen, the theater setting morphs away, as if the audience is instead inside this "Be-In" with them."

Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times: "The emotional resonance of this production is no doubt intensified by the context of our own wartime situation. The U.S. may no longer have a draft, but many young men and women confronting a job market with little breathing room for newcomers have no choice but to enlist. The show encourages us to hang out with its characters, to laugh at their rambunctious energy and to sympathize with their vulnerabilities. Tensions in the tribe break out, but the real terror is the sledgehammer of adult reality that's waiting to descend."

Travis Michael Holder, Entertainment Today: "This Broadway revival gets it. Bigtime. Under the masterful direction of Diane Paulus and featuring wonderfully energetic choreography by Karole Armitage, this is again finally a Hair for the ages, one that honors what the show's creators, my old friends and former costars James Rado and the late Gerome Ragni, wanted to communicate. With enormous help from Michael MacDonald's brilliant costuming, Scott Pask's versatile set that makes the cavernous Pantages stage somehow intimate, and Kevin Adams perfect lighting plot, it's no wonder this mounting received a Tony last year for Best Musical."

Jason Kehe, NeonTommy.com: "All the elements are here for a one-of-a-kind musical experience, but everything would be wasted if not for this phenomenally talented cast, from Steel Burkhardt, whose Berger gets the audience ready for a night of in-your-face theater with some improvised crowd interaction and a silly striptease; to Remillard's endearing Claude; to Caren Lyn Tackett's knockout Sheila. The Pantages hasn't been graced with a cast this good since "Wicked." It's nearly two-and-a-half hours of straight song, and no one so much as takes a breath."

 

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