Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Hair Do! Make The Trip!

I'm going to keep this short and post a full review soon (UPDATE: FULL REVIEW IS UP) but last night, I saw the first preview performance of Hair at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park New York being produced by The Public Theater (that first produced Hair 41 years ago) and the show was SENSATIONAL!

Before we went In The Heights, before we had our Spring Awakening, before we ever paid Rent, we had Hair. And this top notch cast and amazing direction performing the show on a field of grass in the circular Delacorte Theatre against the backdrop of trees and Central Park in the warmth of the summer winds is EXACTLY how Hair should be seen and made relevant again.

Free tickets are distributed either through an online lottery everyday (sign up between midnight at 1pm, then check back between 1pm and 6pm to see if you won), or mostly at the box office at the theatre at 1pm each day (the show will run Tues-Sunday at 8pm until August 31st 2008).

Or in the spririt of Hair, you can go to Craigslist and pay a scalper/bum/meth addict $100-125 for a ticket. Seriously, I've never seen that many rich white people trying to live off their hippie days by buying free tickets illegally...

On the other hand, get tickets any way you can because you MUST see this show before it ends later this summer.

BTW, we lined up at 4:30am on the first day but that was WAY too early. Basically it was a few diehard theatregeeks and hippies, then a bunch of meth addicts (I'm not kidding you), us, some more street people, THEN everyone else. It was an interesting experience to say the least. The bulk of people (who were there NOT intending to scalp the tickets) seemed to arrive between 7-9am. 6:30am would have gotten you a great spot in line already. On the first day, there were still tickets available to those who showed up after 11am and probably even until 1pm but I have a feeling that's not going to last long now that I've seen the show.

And I was joking about buying from Craigslist. PLEASE do not buy from scalpers. That's just wrong. Especially for Hair.

1 comment:

Esther said...

Oh man, I could die of jealousy! I want to see this so bad, and I know I won't be able to. I love Hair. It's always been one of my favorite scores. (I saw it once, on tour in Syracuse years ago). And I'd love to see Jonathan Groff. I'd love to see a show in Central Park. You are so lucky. I can't wait to read your full review! I'll have to live vicariously through your experience.