E-mail to a friend

Hair to return to West End stage

Published Monday 16 November 2009 at 17:15 by Lalayn Baluch

The Tony Award-winning revival of sixties musical Hair is to transfer to London’s Gielgud Theatre next spring.

It will mark the first time an entire Broadway cast has opened a musical in the West End.

The new production of the 1967 show had to extend its run three times following its launch at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park last summer, before it transferred to the Al Hirshfield Theater on Broadway.

Hair originally opened in 1967 at the Public Theater’s base in Lafayette Street, New York, before becoming the first off-Broadway show to move to Broadway the following year.

Also in 1968, it transferred to London’s Shaftesbury Theatre, becoming the first musical to open after the abolition of the Lord Chamberlain. It ran for 1,998 performances, and was forced to close because the ceiling collapsed at the theatre.

The show - which features book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, and music by Galt MacDermot – will be produced in London by the Public Theater and Cameron Mackintosh.

Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater said: “I first saw hair as a 14-year-old runaway in London in 1972. Dancing on the stage at the Shaftesbury, I started to believe there was a place in the world for me, and those like me. To bring the Public’s production of Hair back to London in 2010 means more to me than I can say.”

Directed by Diane Paulus, the show features hit songs including Aquarius, Good Morning Sunshine and Let the Sunshine In.

The show will open on April 14, 2010, following previews from April 1.

E-mail to a friend