HAIR

• Director | Vincent DeGeorge
• Music Director | Steve Goers
• Choreographer/Intimacy Director | Susan Reuter Moser
• Dramaturge | Jenny Doctor
• Cultural Dramaturge | Torie Wiggins
• Fight Director | k. Jenny Jones
• Assistant Director | Madison Osment*
• Assistant Choreographer | Brian Cheung*
• Assistant Cultural Dramaturge | Lucy Acuna* 
• Scenic Designer | Regan Densmore*
• Lighting Designer | Jules Cabrera*
• Costume and Wig/Makeup Designer | Maura Kesterson*
• Sound Designer | Kaitlin Barnett Proctor*
• Wig & Make-Up Master | Missy J. White, alumni guest artist
• Production Stage Manager | Annalee Crosser*
• Props Manager | Mia Adrian*
• Technical Director | Iz Dillon*

*CCM Student

HAIR will run approximately 2 hours with one 15-minute intermission. 

HAIR is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Tams-Witmark LLC. www.concordtheatricals.com

All art making is inherently political. Some art making is explicitly so. What you are about to see on this stage is the practice of radical individualism coming together to form radical community. This show, originally written and performed in 1968, is being brought to life by our 2025 bodies and minds. It is at this intersection where the learning is happening for all of us — the actors, the creative team, the designers, the technicians and now… you.

Since the beginning of our process, I have felt the power of a shared vision from everyone lucky enough to work on CCM HAIR 2025. Working with a director who understands that everyone is invited to the creative table is a gift. Vincent DeGeorge and I discussed that HAIR needed a different artistic process, and he supported my time with the cast by offering foundational sessions in contact improv, intimacy training, modern dance and exploring action mechanics. We ALL did not want to “set the work” on their bodies and hearts. We wanted it to be a process where they had ownership of the work. In addition to the physical process, Vince created weekly meetings that involved research, open conversations with the student directors, cast, stage management, musician Steve Goers and faculty. A key part of this process was giving the students time with historical dramaturge Jenny Doctor and cultural dramaturge Torie Wiggins. These meetings are the foundation and an integral part of the learning process. Congratulations to every single beautiful human who worked, researched, coached, designed, managed, danced, sang, played and shaped this extraordinary piece of art. I am grateful to work in a space that celebrates the arts and the human condition with so much care, respect and love.

At times of social turbulence and change, works of musical theatre often serve as a way to communicate ideas of social unrest and protest. For example, in 1841 at a time of great Italian unrest, the young composer Guiseppe Verdi and librettist Temistocle Solera created the opera Nabucco based on a biblical plot about the Jews enslaved and oppressed by the Assyrians. It became enormously popular as an indirect expression of Italian nationalism, the people singing of their yearning for freedom from governance by the Austrian Empire. In 1968, at a time of great political and social unrest in the United States, actors Gerome Ragni and James Rado created a new kind of musical theatre work, almost like a rock opera. In HAIR, they communicated ideas of counterculture using many different musical styles and stage effects to communicate ideas of counterculture, examining the younger generation’s responses to the Vietnam War and the draft, civil rights, mind-altering drugs, sexual freedom, various forms of protest from rejecting parental expectations to dropping out to political activism, astrology and space exploration and, of course, exploring the social discourse of hairstyles. Perhaps surprisingly, given its premise of causing discomfort, this direct expression of the counterculture became enormously popular on Broadway and eventually on film. Perhaps more surprisingly, over 50 years later, this rock musical founded on discomfort continues to have significant relevance.

Dean Peter Jutras, Rebecca Bromels, Deborah Neiheisel-DeZarn, Jen Lampson, Elaine M. Cox, Annie Bloemer, Sara Gibson, Laura Aldana, Jessica Lucas and Ray Dobson and their team in the CCM Performance Management Office, Amy Luce, the Musical Theatre faculty: Vincent DeGeorge, Ian Axness, Sarah Folsom, Stephen Goers, Jessica Harris, Diane Lala, Wendy LeBorgne, Julie Spangler, Lauren Sprague, Rachel Stevens, the CCM Voice faculty: Karen Lykes, Quinn Patrick Ankrum, Avery Bargasse, Ellen Graham, Pat Linhart, Mary Southworth Shaffer, Ken Shaw, Dan Weeks, Talia Zoll.

In loving memory of our teacher, mentor, colleague, and friend Keyona Willis. “Inhale. Ground. Go.”

The production team acknowledges and thanks the following from which film clips and images sourced for our Trip film documentary (all are available for unrestricted use):

• National Archives: “Operational activities of the 1st Inf Div (2nd Bn, 18th Inf)” (NAID: 32171), “Operation Akron (9th Infantry Division) South Vietnam” (NAID: 31335), “Search and Destroy Mission; Dong Tam, Mekong Delta, South Vietnam” (NAID: 31411), “Combat Operations (1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, 198th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division), Hoi An, South Vietnam” (NAID: 31781).
• Internet Archive: Painted Hills, feature film directed by Harold F. Kress (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1951); “1920 Presidential Campaign - Warren Harding & Calvin Coolidge,” campaign poster, 1920.
• Library of Congress, Theodore Roosevelt Association Collection: “Theodore Roosevelt in Africa [1909, 2],” filmed by Cherry Kearton in 1909 and released in 1910.
• Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division: Brady-Handy photograph collection, “Pres. U.S. Grant,” photograph, 1870s (LC-BH826- 3703), remastered on Internet Archive; “Abraham Lincoln, Pres't U.S.,” photograph by Alexander Gardner, 1865 (Acc. box no. DLC/PP - 1972:018), remastered on Internet Archive; “John Wilkes Booth,” photograph by Alexander Gardner, ca. 1865 (Acc. box no. DLC/PP - 1972:018); “G. Washington,” portrait by Peter Frederick Rothermel, engraved by Alexander Hay Ritchie (Boston: L.A. Ellicot, c1852?); Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs, “Maj. Gen. G.A. Custer,” from photographic negative in Brady's National Portrait Gallery (New York: E. & H.T. Anthony, [between 1858 and 1863]).
• California Revealed: “Fire Demonstration / Visits to Blasingame and Mariposa Fire Stations,” filmed by California Division of Forestry, 1955.
• Wikimedia Commons: “Aretha Franklin,” Atlanta Records advertisement, Billboard Magazine (February 17, 1968).

1968 Greenwich Village, New York

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