We got great news on Thursday that we could move into the theater three days early. As a result, Friday and Saturday were a flurry of activity. We got our set moved in yesterday and it is at least in "rehearsable" condition for Sunday.
More on this soon!
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Thursday, July 5, 2007
T Minus 10 Days: We're 420-friendly!
Quite appropriate for the musical HAiR, we have sold 420 tickets as of today!
Everybody light up!
Peace,
Jon
Everybody light up!
Peace,
Jon
Friday, June 29, 2007
T Minus 15 Days: Time Keeps On Slippin', Slippin', Slippin...
Wow, it is already Friday, June 29th, and I have so much to catch up on!
Today, we did our second public appearance. This one was at the San Jose Farmer's Market on San Pedro Street. We performed right in front of Theatre on San Pedro Square where we will open in just two weeks(!!!!!). Some of the tribe couldn't make it during a work day, but it was still pretty exciting.
Dennis Dentoni, who is the understudy for Claude, filled in for Brennan Whitaker, and Ester Selk substituted for Adena DeMonte as Jeanie and both did a great job! Sammy Rodriguez (Berger), and Michelle Wynn (Sheila) were in superb form and Lonnique Genelle was again fantastic as Dionne singing the opening number Aquarius.
The crowd was mostly walk-bys shopping in the street at the market, but we had a goodly number of people stop and listen. We handed out hundreds of cards and I am sure some of those will turn into ticket sales. People seem to like being handed something by an actor in a show. I guess it gives them a personal connection to the show.
I am way behind on how things have been going in rehearsal, but suffice it to say that over the past two weeks, we blocked the show in its entirety and yesterday we ran Act 1 in something I call a "stumble-through" (as opposed to a "run-through"). The name says it all.
Amazingly enough, this was one of the best "stumble-through"s I have ever done! The tribe pretty much new what to do, and while we did have to start-and-stop a number of times to rework things (pretty much expected after you have just done initial blocking) it didn't take long. The actual running time of Act 1 including start-and-stops, but not including the warm-ups, a mid-act coffee break and notes at the end was about 1:40, which is pretty good for an act that should take 1:20 when it is polished. We should easily achieve that!
In addition, the singing is getting better and better every day. Katie Coleman, who joined us a number of weeks ago as vocal director, has done a terrific job of bringing the vocals together. In last night's rehearsal and today's performance, harmonies were easily heard in most of the songs.
We got in a shipment of equipment this week, including our wireless hand-held microphones as well as some new-fangled LED lighting fixtures which are designed to provide colored stage washes (much like a cyc light) but using a fraction of the power. Our tech director Joey Brennan thinks they are really cool!
I am going to try (and I know I've promised this before :-( ) to blog every day the rest of the way and hopefully it will all be good news! Ticket sales, while still not astronomical, keep going up. We have almost hit $6,000 and 300 tickets sold, and that is good. As I mentioned in a previous post, we didn't hit these numbers until well into our final week before opening Tomfoolery, and our numbers are climbing at an increasing rate. We are hoping to head into the opening week (i.e., a week from now) already close to $10,000 in sales. More important, we want to sell out our opening performances (July 14 and 15) because those are the dates that word of mouth will really take hold. The more people who come to see the opening weekend, the better draw the show will be the rest of the run.
See you all soon at HAIR!
Today, we did our second public appearance. This one was at the San Jose Farmer's Market on San Pedro Street. We performed right in front of Theatre on San Pedro Square where we will open in just two weeks(!!!!!). Some of the tribe couldn't make it during a work day, but it was still pretty exciting.
Dennis Dentoni, who is the understudy for Claude, filled in for Brennan Whitaker, and Ester Selk substituted for Adena DeMonte as Jeanie and both did a great job! Sammy Rodriguez (Berger), and Michelle Wynn (Sheila) were in superb form and Lonnique Genelle was again fantastic as Dionne singing the opening number Aquarius.
The crowd was mostly walk-bys shopping in the street at the market, but we had a goodly number of people stop and listen. We handed out hundreds of cards and I am sure some of those will turn into ticket sales. People seem to like being handed something by an actor in a show. I guess it gives them a personal connection to the show.
I am way behind on how things have been going in rehearsal, but suffice it to say that over the past two weeks, we blocked the show in its entirety and yesterday we ran Act 1 in something I call a "stumble-through" (as opposed to a "run-through"). The name says it all.
Amazingly enough, this was one of the best "stumble-through"s I have ever done! The tribe pretty much new what to do, and while we did have to start-and-stop a number of times to rework things (pretty much expected after you have just done initial blocking) it didn't take long. The actual running time of Act 1 including start-and-stops, but not including the warm-ups, a mid-act coffee break and notes at the end was about 1:40, which is pretty good for an act that should take 1:20 when it is polished. We should easily achieve that!
In addition, the singing is getting better and better every day. Katie Coleman, who joined us a number of weeks ago as vocal director, has done a terrific job of bringing the vocals together. In last night's rehearsal and today's performance, harmonies were easily heard in most of the songs.
We got in a shipment of equipment this week, including our wireless hand-held microphones as well as some new-fangled LED lighting fixtures which are designed to provide colored stage washes (much like a cyc light) but using a fraction of the power. Our tech director Joey Brennan thinks they are really cool!
I am going to try (and I know I've promised this before :-( ) to blog every day the rest of the way and hopefully it will all be good news! Ticket sales, while still not astronomical, keep going up. We have almost hit $6,000 and 300 tickets sold, and that is good. As I mentioned in a previous post, we didn't hit these numbers until well into our final week before opening Tomfoolery, and our numbers are climbing at an increasing rate. We are hoping to head into the opening week (i.e., a week from now) already close to $10,000 in sales. More important, we want to sell out our opening performances (July 14 and 15) because those are the dates that word of mouth will really take hold. The more people who come to see the opening weekend, the better draw the show will be the rest of the run.
See you all soon at HAIR!
Friday, June 22, 2007
T Minus 22 Days: PRIDE Tomorrow!
Come join the Muwekma Hair Tribe at San Francisco's 2007 Pride Celebration. We will be performing on the mainstage at 1:50 PM behind City Hall. For more information, see www.sfpride.org.
We will perform:
Aquarius
Sodomy
Hair
Easy To Be Hard
Where Do I Go?
The Flesh Failures/Let The Sun Shine In
More on our performance on Sunday!
Peace,
Jon
We will perform:
Aquarius
Sodomy
Hair
Easy To Be Hard
Where Do I Go?
The Flesh Failures/Let The Sun Shine In
More on our performance on Sunday!
Peace,
Jon
Friday, June 15, 2007
T Minus 30 Days: Still a Trickle, But Definitely Heading Up!
Every producer watches, watches, watches... did we sell any tickets today? Still four weeks out from our opening night, our ticket sales are just a trickle. We don't expect any big upturn until July 1, when our full ad campaign has kicked in and we have hopefully gotten some more word of mouth.
With that understanding, it is still cool to note that this week, our ticket sales made a definite turn upward this week. Sales have been trickling in since the end of March (even before Barb and I made our trek to New York to visit the Hair Archives) when we sold our first tickets. We have had generally consistent week-to-week sales of a few hundred dollars, but this week, things almost doubled. Here is the chart of weekly sales:
The early effects of our ad in the San Jose Rep's Nixon's Nixon program showed up through April 14, but after that, sales slumped a bit for a few weeks, then started going up again as word of mouth from the cast and distribution of flyers and posters started. The sudden uptick this week is a little unexpected. We didn't do anything this week to suggest that would happen, so it must be happening purely by the effects of cumulative word of mouth and distribution of materials. In the next few weeks, though, a series of ads will start to break:
1/2 page program ad for Los Gatos' Jazz on the Plaz (which runs all summer)
1/2 page program ad in American Musical Theater's All Shook Up
Full page program ad in San Jose Rep's Ella
1/4 page ad in Out Now Magazine
Smaller ads in The Metro and The Wave
A full page ad in Discover San Jose (July), along with an article and pictures!
This is going to be the widest ad campaign we've ever run. In addition, we will probably get a significant amount of non-paid publicity from our local papers, and maybe even a few papers farther afield (Bay Area Reporter is interested in doing an article on our show).
It will be interesting to see how sales track over the four weeks leading up to our opening. An interesting comparison is our week-to-week sales for Tomfoolery:
Opening Saturday for Tomfoolery was October 14, and opening Saturday for Hair is July 14, so the dates correlate very closely. In fact, the week marked September 16 (with the asterisk) is essentially the same week as June 16, the most current week in the Hair table. That means, at the same point as we were for Tomfoolery (4 weeks out), we have sold TEN TIMES as many dollars worth of tickets for HAIR. And we didn't hit $3750 dollars in total sales for Tomfoolery until very late in the week ending Oct. 7. So we are FAR ahead of where we were in our last production.
Pretty cool, for sure!
Of course, we have no way of knowing what will happen as we get closer to opening, and we also have no idea what will happen after we open. But the show is already demonstrating its power as a draw. Other companies have experienced the same thing. Sacramento's Artistic Differences company sold out almost there entire run by the second weekend of their show. Mountain Play has been selling over 3000 tickets a performance for its Sunday afternoon performances. We need about 1.5 times ONE PERFORMANCE of their ticket sales to sell out our entire run!
Stay tuned, the rocket ship is just starting to leave the launch pad!
Jon
With that understanding, it is still cool to note that this week, our ticket sales made a definite turn upward this week. Sales have been trickling in since the end of March (even before Barb and I made our trek to New York to visit the Hair Archives) when we sold our first tickets. We have had generally consistent week-to-week sales of a few hundred dollars, but this week, things almost doubled. Here is the chart of weekly sales:
Week Weekly Cumulative
31-Mar $164 $ 164
7-Apr 293 457
14-Apr 245 702
21-Apr 300 1,002
28-Apr 144 1,146
05-May 150 1,296
12-May 155 1,451
19-May 240 1,691
26-May 460 2,151
2-Jun 475 2,626
9-Jun 420 3,046
16-Jun 735 3,781
The early effects of our ad in the San Jose Rep's Nixon's Nixon program showed up through April 14, but after that, sales slumped a bit for a few weeks, then started going up again as word of mouth from the cast and distribution of flyers and posters started. The sudden uptick this week is a little unexpected. We didn't do anything this week to suggest that would happen, so it must be happening purely by the effects of cumulative word of mouth and distribution of materials. In the next few weeks, though, a series of ads will start to break:
1/2 page program ad for Los Gatos' Jazz on the Plaz (which runs all summer)
1/2 page program ad in American Musical Theater's All Shook Up
Full page program ad in San Jose Rep's Ella
1/4 page ad in Out Now Magazine
Smaller ads in The Metro and The Wave
A full page ad in Discover San Jose (July), along with an article and pictures!
This is going to be the widest ad campaign we've ever run. In addition, we will probably get a significant amount of non-paid publicity from our local papers, and maybe even a few papers farther afield (Bay Area Reporter is interested in doing an article on our show).
It will be interesting to see how sales track over the four weeks leading up to our opening. An interesting comparison is our week-to-week sales for Tomfoolery:
Week Weekly Cumulative
9-Sep $ 140 $ 140
16-Sep* 347 487
23-Sep 482 969
30-Sep 647 1,616
7-Oct 2,401 4,017
14-Oct 2,473 6,490
21-Oct 3,652 10,142
28-Oct 4,191 14,333
4-Nov 788 15,121
Opening Saturday for Tomfoolery was October 14, and opening Saturday for Hair is July 14, so the dates correlate very closely. In fact, the week marked September 16 (with the asterisk) is essentially the same week as June 16, the most current week in the Hair table. That means, at the same point as we were for Tomfoolery (4 weeks out), we have sold TEN TIMES as many dollars worth of tickets for HAIR. And we didn't hit $3750 dollars in total sales for Tomfoolery until very late in the week ending Oct. 7. So we are FAR ahead of where we were in our last production.
Pretty cool, for sure!
Of course, we have no way of knowing what will happen as we get closer to opening, and we also have no idea what will happen after we open. But the show is already demonstrating its power as a draw. Other companies have experienced the same thing. Sacramento's Artistic Differences company sold out almost there entire run by the second weekend of their show. Mountain Play has been selling over 3000 tickets a performance for its Sunday afternoon performances. We need about 1.5 times ONE PERFORMANCE of their ticket sales to sell out our entire run!
Stay tuned, the rocket ship is just starting to leave the launch pad!
Jon
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
T Minus 34 Days: Talkbacks With Michael Butler and Original Cast Members
We are really proud to announce that we will be having a number of audience talkback sessions both before and after performances of HAiR at Theatre on San Pedro Square.
Michael Butler
Opening weekend, there will be two opportunities to participate in a talkback with Michael Butler, the producer of the Broadway production of HAiR (and many of the other first-run regional productions) as well as the 1979 movie with Treat Williams. Other members of first-run HAiR tribes may join in these talkbacks.
July 13, 8:00 PM (Preview) after the performance
July 15, 2:00 PM (Matinee) after the performance
Walter Michael Harris and Jonathon Johnson
On the third weekend (July 27-29), two members of first-run HAiR tribes will join us for audience talkbacks. Walter Michael Harris was in the original production of HAiR on Broadway, singing the beautiful What A Piece Of Work Is Man with Ronnie Dyson in the show and on the original cast album. Jonathon Johnson, who later performed with The New Christy Minstrels, and also wrote the book Good HAiR Days about his experiences with the show, was in the Seattle, Chicago, Miami and Mercury Tour tribes of HAiR playing Woof. He concluded with 6 months in the Broadway cast, playing Claude in the closing Broadway performance.
July 27, 8:00 PM (Walter Michael Harris only) after the performance
July 28, 8:30 PM (Walter Michael Harris and Jonathon Johnson) after the performance
July 29, 1:30 PM (Walter Michael Harris and Jonathon Johnson) before the performance
We will be adding additional talkback sessions as we confirm with former tribe members and other participants of the wonderful world that encompasses those who have been involved with this remarkable show.
Jon
Monday, June 11, 2007
T Minus 35 Days: Jonathon Johnson Rocks!
I had to put the embarrassment of missing almost 3 weeks on this blog behind me and sit down and do this today. As someone who is modestly ADD, I can easily get into a spiral of procrastination on certain things, especially if I have missed a few milestones. Each day becomes a bigger hurdle and makes it harder to get back to it. Sigh...
However, after this weekend, I HAD to put a stop to it and get this blog back on track. We are now five weeks out and I will try to post a recap of the past few weeks when I can, but this weekend demanded documenting and so here I sit, finally making the effort and doing it.
This past weekend, the Muwekma tribe had the phenomenal experience of meeting and visiting with Jonathon Johnson, the author of the book "Good HAiR Days" (one of only four books I have come across that are specifically about HAiR, the others being Mary Lorrie Davis' book Letting My HAiR Down, Barbara Lee Horn's academic treatise The Age of "Hair": Evolution and Impact of Broadway's First Rock Musical, and director Scott Miller's book Let The Sun Shine In).
Jonathon grew up in Seattle and was a budding rock and roller in the late 1960s. He graduated high school in 1969 and started looking for something to do. He stumbled onto HAiR, which was about to open in Seattle, and it changed his life in many ways. He ended up playing in several companies of HAiR, including Seattle, Chicago, Miami, many stops on the Mercury Tour, before finally closing the show on Broadway in 1972. During that time he principally played Woof, but in the end, he was the last Claude to appear in the first-run Biltmore Theatre production, on July 1, 1972.
We were introduced to Jonathon by Nina Machlin-Dayton of the HAiR Archives and her description of Jonathon as one of the most gracious and wonderful men she has ever met was, if anything, an understatement. I had read Jonathon's book early in the process of deciding to do HAiR and I already knew much about him, including the unbelievable ordeal he went through in losing his wife and one-year-old daughter to an arsonist-caused fire at their hotel while performing as Woof in the Cleveland stop of the Mercury Hair Tour. I felt like I already knew this man, both his pain and his eventual triumph over it as he put his life back together. I couldn't really believe I might have the opportunity to meet him, let alone share more than a few moments with him.
After Nina's introduction, I contacted Jonathon by email and asked if he might be willing to come to see our show when we opened and possibly participate in an audience talkback session after the show. I pointed out that we couldn't really afford anything in the way of an appearance fee, and was overwhelmed when Jonathon responded saying that he would never consider taking a fee for what he considered a labor of love, and that all he asked was to cover his basic expenses. He then offered to come up TWICE, once for the show and once to talk to the tribe during our rehearsal period.
Fortunately airfare from San Diego to San Jose (thank you Southwest Airlines!) is relatively inexpensive. Hotels however, can be expensive, and Jonathon had offered to stay wherever we could afford, not to worry. In an attempt to keep expenses down, I tentatively extended an offer to him to stay at our home and he graciously accepted!
Friday night, Barb and I had to do our last duty as house ushers/box office at Bobbi Fagone's Thunderbabe at Theatre on San Pedro Square. After the show started (we had already seen it three times and decided that was sufficient - it was good, but not something we really wanted to see a fourth time), we had dinner at Speido near the theater. As we sat there, we chatted about what was upcoming for the weekend. We certainly had good feelings from our email exchanges with Jonathon, but as the time to pick him up at the airport drew near, we realized that we certainly couldn't be sure how it would go. We also wondered how the tribe would take to spending time with this man who was not part of our relatively tightly knit group.
On Saturday morning, we had to put the finishing touches on the house (we had just redecorated my son's bedroom after he left for his punk rock band's summer tour of the country - see Arsonists Get All The Girls). Barb went shopping for dinner for the tribe and I drove to San Jose Airport. Jonathon's plane arrived on time and as soon as I saw him walking up the corridor (I easily recognized him from the picture on the back of his book), I waved and he came up to me and gave me a hug. I pretty much knew from that moment that this was going to be an incredible visit.
We stood at the baggage claim waiting for his luggage and in less than 10 minutes we were chatting about things as if we had been friends for years. I have rarely met anyone who made me feel so at ease so quickly (well, recently this is becoming a quite common occurrence when it comes to members of the HAiR "family" as that seems to be the norm judging by our experiences in Los Angeles and New York and Massachusetts!)
We talked about the 60s, the current world situation and of course, HAiR. Jonathon clearly shares many of my views about why HAiR's message is so important today, and as a former first-run tribe member, and someone who personally knows (knew) Gerry Ragni, Jim Rado, Galt MacDermot and Michael Butler, he is passionate about the show remaining true to its spirit and its roots.
We drove back to the house and never stopped talking. In fact, I can say that except for a few hours of sleep Jonathon finally submitted to that evening, we never stopped the discussions until Barb drove him away to take him to his return flight.
The tribe started arriving around 6 PM and we put the food on the grill (Barb made mountains of shish kabob along with corn, garlic bread and salad). I never saw Jonathon stop engaging with groups of tribe members. Later in the evening, I sat at the piano and played for some of the tribe who wanted to sing and we got the whole group warmed up and sang several songs from the show for him. Towards the end, we implored him to sing for us and while declining to do Sodomy (he claims his falsetto deserted him many years before), he gave us a hearfelt rendition of Where Do I Go. When the tribe joined in singing the backing parts, I got chills sitting there realizing that we were all doing something that not many people who have done this show have had the chance to do: sing with someone who had sung the very same song on Broadway, on the closing night of the Broadway production, no less.
Later on, we made our way to Kiva Retreat in Santa Cruz where we all spent a few hours chilling (well, more like cooking ;-)) in the hot tubs and sauna.
The following morning, I awoke about 8:30 and found Dudley Brooks, our choreographer (who had sacked out on our couch so he didn't have to do a round-trip to San Francisco before our Sunday morning rehearsal), and Jonathon sitting downstairs talking about guitars! We finally all got up and drove to Hoover for the rehearsal.
When the tribe assembled, we got to put on a mini-show for Jonathon, running through most of the big tribe numbers that we had already completed staging. He watched and applauded! He gave us some terrific feedback on some of the numbers and we plan to incorporate as much of it as possible.
When we did I Got Life, he noticed immediately that we were not doing the raised hands at the end of the song (during "I Got Life - Life - Life - Life - Life!") as he remembered it. We had Claude and the tribe raising their hands together on each Life and he pointed out that they should alternate hands which is a much more effective visual presentation.
We explained to him that we had tried to do that, but had a problem: with Claude trying to say his line "Life!" with his hands up, he couldn't sing into the microphone (we are using handheld mics as was done in the original Broadway and tour productions).
At this moment, Jonathon made a comment that made us realize why this opportunity was so unique. He solved our problem in less than a few seconds by pointing out (something which we had never been told) that in the original productions, Woof held the mic for Claude during the song! DUH! Of course! A small trivial detail, but one which will make at least that song much better and slightly more authentic as well. And there would have been no way to guess that, we would have had to stumble on it ourselves or settle for the compromise in the choreography that we had worked out.
After a short break, and with Jonathon's departure time bearing down on us, we gathered in a circle and I asked Jonathon to talk about the nude scene, a continued source of concern for the tribe. Jonathon reiterated that the scene had always been voluntary but that he felt it was an important part of the show and the song, noting that the last line of Where Do I Go is everyone singing out loudly "Freedom!" and he always felt that the nudity in the show at that moment clearly expressed the sense of tribal freedom. We all exchanged feelings about it, and I think it definitely helped to at least explain for us how people felt when doing this scene almost 40 years ago. We also talked about the war in Iraq as compared to the war in Vietnam and we got a lot from Jonathon about his sense of that era.
As we prepared to say goodbye, the tribe surrounded him in a huge group hug and I snapped this picture! (picture will be posted soon!)
We walked back to the car and I thanked him for being so gracious to take his valuable time to spend with us. He thanked me for giving him the opportunity! What a delight to meet someone who would say that!
Fortunately, our time with Jonathon is not over. He will return to us on July 28th and participate with us in the Monterey Summer of Love Festival concert and see our show as well. It will also be an opporunity for him to meet up again with one of his friends, (Walter) Michael Harris who sang the original What A Piece Of Work Is Man on Broadway with Ronnie Dyson. Michael will also be visiting us that weekend. What will happen on stage in Monterey is ANYBODY'S GUESS!
They say that all good things must end, but I have a strong sense that this wasn't an end, but just a beginning.
Beads, Flowers, Freedom and Happiness to all!
Jon
However, after this weekend, I HAD to put a stop to it and get this blog back on track. We are now five weeks out and I will try to post a recap of the past few weeks when I can, but this weekend demanded documenting and so here I sit, finally making the effort and doing it.
This past weekend, the Muwekma tribe had the phenomenal experience of meeting and visiting with Jonathon Johnson, the author of the book "Good HAiR Days" (one of only four books I have come across that are specifically about HAiR, the others being Mary Lorrie Davis' book Letting My HAiR Down, Barbara Lee Horn's academic treatise The Age of "Hair": Evolution and Impact of Broadway's First Rock Musical, and director Scott Miller's book Let The Sun Shine In).
Jonathon grew up in Seattle and was a budding rock and roller in the late 1960s. He graduated high school in 1969 and started looking for something to do. He stumbled onto HAiR, which was about to open in Seattle, and it changed his life in many ways. He ended up playing in several companies of HAiR, including Seattle, Chicago, Miami, many stops on the Mercury Tour, before finally closing the show on Broadway in 1972. During that time he principally played Woof, but in the end, he was the last Claude to appear in the first-run Biltmore Theatre production, on July 1, 1972.
We were introduced to Jonathon by Nina Machlin-Dayton of the HAiR Archives and her description of Jonathon as one of the most gracious and wonderful men she has ever met was, if anything, an understatement. I had read Jonathon's book early in the process of deciding to do HAiR and I already knew much about him, including the unbelievable ordeal he went through in losing his wife and one-year-old daughter to an arsonist-caused fire at their hotel while performing as Woof in the Cleveland stop of the Mercury Hair Tour. I felt like I already knew this man, both his pain and his eventual triumph over it as he put his life back together. I couldn't really believe I might have the opportunity to meet him, let alone share more than a few moments with him.
After Nina's introduction, I contacted Jonathon by email and asked if he might be willing to come to see our show when we opened and possibly participate in an audience talkback session after the show. I pointed out that we couldn't really afford anything in the way of an appearance fee, and was overwhelmed when Jonathon responded saying that he would never consider taking a fee for what he considered a labor of love, and that all he asked was to cover his basic expenses. He then offered to come up TWICE, once for the show and once to talk to the tribe during our rehearsal period.
Fortunately airfare from San Diego to San Jose (thank you Southwest Airlines!) is relatively inexpensive. Hotels however, can be expensive, and Jonathon had offered to stay wherever we could afford, not to worry. In an attempt to keep expenses down, I tentatively extended an offer to him to stay at our home and he graciously accepted!
Friday night, Barb and I had to do our last duty as house ushers/box office at Bobbi Fagone's Thunderbabe at Theatre on San Pedro Square. After the show started (we had already seen it three times and decided that was sufficient - it was good, but not something we really wanted to see a fourth time), we had dinner at Speido near the theater. As we sat there, we chatted about what was upcoming for the weekend. We certainly had good feelings from our email exchanges with Jonathon, but as the time to pick him up at the airport drew near, we realized that we certainly couldn't be sure how it would go. We also wondered how the tribe would take to spending time with this man who was not part of our relatively tightly knit group.
On Saturday morning, we had to put the finishing touches on the house (we had just redecorated my son's bedroom after he left for his punk rock band's summer tour of the country - see Arsonists Get All The Girls). Barb went shopping for dinner for the tribe and I drove to San Jose Airport. Jonathon's plane arrived on time and as soon as I saw him walking up the corridor (I easily recognized him from the picture on the back of his book), I waved and he came up to me and gave me a hug. I pretty much knew from that moment that this was going to be an incredible visit.
We stood at the baggage claim waiting for his luggage and in less than 10 minutes we were chatting about things as if we had been friends for years. I have rarely met anyone who made me feel so at ease so quickly (well, recently this is becoming a quite common occurrence when it comes to members of the HAiR "family" as that seems to be the norm judging by our experiences in Los Angeles and New York and Massachusetts!)
We talked about the 60s, the current world situation and of course, HAiR. Jonathon clearly shares many of my views about why HAiR's message is so important today, and as a former first-run tribe member, and someone who personally knows (knew) Gerry Ragni, Jim Rado, Galt MacDermot and Michael Butler, he is passionate about the show remaining true to its spirit and its roots.
We drove back to the house and never stopped talking. In fact, I can say that except for a few hours of sleep Jonathon finally submitted to that evening, we never stopped the discussions until Barb drove him away to take him to his return flight.
The tribe started arriving around 6 PM and we put the food on the grill (Barb made mountains of shish kabob along with corn, garlic bread and salad). I never saw Jonathon stop engaging with groups of tribe members. Later in the evening, I sat at the piano and played for some of the tribe who wanted to sing and we got the whole group warmed up and sang several songs from the show for him. Towards the end, we implored him to sing for us and while declining to do Sodomy (he claims his falsetto deserted him many years before), he gave us a hearfelt rendition of Where Do I Go. When the tribe joined in singing the backing parts, I got chills sitting there realizing that we were all doing something that not many people who have done this show have had the chance to do: sing with someone who had sung the very same song on Broadway, on the closing night of the Broadway production, no less.
Later on, we made our way to Kiva Retreat in Santa Cruz where we all spent a few hours chilling (well, more like cooking ;-)) in the hot tubs and sauna.
The following morning, I awoke about 8:30 and found Dudley Brooks, our choreographer (who had sacked out on our couch so he didn't have to do a round-trip to San Francisco before our Sunday morning rehearsal), and Jonathon sitting downstairs talking about guitars! We finally all got up and drove to Hoover for the rehearsal.
When the tribe assembled, we got to put on a mini-show for Jonathon, running through most of the big tribe numbers that we had already completed staging. He watched and applauded! He gave us some terrific feedback on some of the numbers and we plan to incorporate as much of it as possible.
When we did I Got Life, he noticed immediately that we were not doing the raised hands at the end of the song (during "I Got Life - Life - Life - Life - Life!") as he remembered it. We had Claude and the tribe raising their hands together on each Life and he pointed out that they should alternate hands which is a much more effective visual presentation.
We explained to him that we had tried to do that, but had a problem: with Claude trying to say his line "Life!" with his hands up, he couldn't sing into the microphone (we are using handheld mics as was done in the original Broadway and tour productions).
At this moment, Jonathon made a comment that made us realize why this opportunity was so unique. He solved our problem in less than a few seconds by pointing out (something which we had never been told) that in the original productions, Woof held the mic for Claude during the song! DUH! Of course! A small trivial detail, but one which will make at least that song much better and slightly more authentic as well. And there would have been no way to guess that, we would have had to stumble on it ourselves or settle for the compromise in the choreography that we had worked out.
After a short break, and with Jonathon's departure time bearing down on us, we gathered in a circle and I asked Jonathon to talk about the nude scene, a continued source of concern for the tribe. Jonathon reiterated that the scene had always been voluntary but that he felt it was an important part of the show and the song, noting that the last line of Where Do I Go is everyone singing out loudly "Freedom!" and he always felt that the nudity in the show at that moment clearly expressed the sense of tribal freedom. We all exchanged feelings about it, and I think it definitely helped to at least explain for us how people felt when doing this scene almost 40 years ago. We also talked about the war in Iraq as compared to the war in Vietnam and we got a lot from Jonathon about his sense of that era.
As we prepared to say goodbye, the tribe surrounded him in a huge group hug and I snapped this picture! (picture will be posted soon!)
We walked back to the car and I thanked him for being so gracious to take his valuable time to spend with us. He thanked me for giving him the opportunity! What a delight to meet someone who would say that!
Fortunately, our time with Jonathon is not over. He will return to us on July 28th and participate with us in the Monterey Summer of Love Festival concert and see our show as well. It will also be an opporunity for him to meet up again with one of his friends, (Walter) Michael Harris who sang the original What A Piece Of Work Is Man on Broadway with Ronnie Dyson. Michael will also be visiting us that weekend. What will happen on stage in Monterey is ANYBODY'S GUESS!
They say that all good things must end, but I have a strong sense that this wasn't an end, but just a beginning.
Beads, Flowers, Freedom and Happiness to all!
Jon
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
