Free-wheeling 'Hair' musical on stage at GVSU

Grand Valley State University theater students will liven up the summer by bringing to the stage the original 'American tribal love-rock musical' ¿ Hair.

Hair can be seen July 24, 25 and 26 at 7:30 p.m., and July 27 at 3 p.m. Productions are held at the Louis Armstrong Theatre, Performing Arts Center, Allendale Campus. Tickets are $10 general admission, $8 seniors and faculty, $5 all students. Reservations available by calling (616) 331-2149.

Written by Gerome Ragni and James Rado with music by Galt MacDermot, Hair opened on Broadway in 1968 and hit movie theaters in 1979. Unlike most musicals of its period, it is based on a vision -- a sense of a particular time and place -- rather than a plot. It presents a series of incidents in the lives of a tribe of 'hippies,' all non-collegiate dropouts devoted to a philosophy of 'make love, not war' during the Vietnam War.

Main characters are Claude (performed by Dave Siik), a draftee who attempts to escape his stuffy, bourgeois background by pretending to be from Manchester, England, and who is in love with Sheila; Sheila (Heather Hartnett), an anti-war protest leader; Berger (Michael Empson), the group's rebellious leader who has just been expelled from high school; Crissy (Erin Knapp), who plaintively searches for her lost love; Jeanie (Amy Larink), a young woman high on life, in love with Claude and pregnant; Woof (Rodel Salazar), who may or may not be homosexual, but has a crush on Mick Jagger; and Hud (Rodney Bean), an outspoken and dynamic Black Power activist.

Director Trinity Bird updated the show with a new character: Dionne (Tamira Henry), a Mother Earth figure who helps guide Claude on his journey.

In the course of the play, these characters reject the values of their parents and the establishment, lashing out at pollution, war, the draft, racial bigotry, and what they see as mindless patriotism, rigid sexual standards, and middle-class hypocrisy.

'We chose this show at a time when history was repeating itself,' said Bird. 'A lot of us were feeling the same things these characters feel when we started the war in Iraq. It seemed like the perfect show.'

The production contains adult language, adult situations, and drug use and is not recommended for young children.