by Birdie Keller ’25
There is often a great deal of overlap between students involved in the English and Theater Departments, from actors to designers and crew members. Indeed, the English department itself is plastered with posters from performances past. So, we are always excited to see the culmination of creative endeavors in the theater department, and this was true for this semester’s production of Hair.
The musical Hair debuted in 1967 and is about counterculture movements in the 1960s. Macalester’s production of the show was unique in a few ways, including the amount of content removed from the original script and the rotating casts. Though all actors involved performed every night, there was the “orange” cast and the “blue” cast of the principal roles, which rotated every night.
The original production of Hair features obscene language, nudity, and heavy drug use, much of which was removed from Macalester’s production as the script underwent changes. Actor Kyra Layman ‘25, who played Jeanie in the orange cast, cays, “After being cast, we found out that there had been drastic changes made to the script, so we went through a long process of meeting with the director and production team to try to find a script we all agreed on. In the end, I think many people in the cast had things they would have liked changed in the script, but we made do and had fun with what we did have.” Macalester’s production indeed featured an announcement at the beginning of the show, requested by the company owning rights to the production, stating that they did not consent to the modification.
Though Hair was at times tricky for students to navigate, the amount of passion and creativity poured into the production from all members involved was palpable. From lighting, costume, sound and props design to the musical numbers, the show was a blast to watch, crafted to involve audience immersion. Sound designer Lucas Martin ‘24 says that the best part of the process “was once most of the adults were done with their jobs and we were mostly able to just run the show self sufficiently on our own.” This enjoyment of the process is echoed by Layman, who says, “It was an absolute pleasure to work with the other actors and the student stage management/crew, as well as the whole design team.”
This care for the act of making theater is what makes productions like Hair incredible for audiences to watch, and what keeps bringing audiences back to theater spaces time and time again. I look forward to the Hair poster being added to the English office walls soon!