Early in the rehearsals for Hair, and individual member of the cast is led, blindfolded, into the center of the huge rehearsal hall by the director Tom O'Horgan.

Deadly silence.

Suddenly a burst of sound as the other 20-odd members of the cast rush the blindfolded one, whistling, touching, whispering, yelling.

He is hoisted aloft, whirled in a canvas, whisked across the floor.  He hears voices whispering beautiful things in his ear;  then they begin to call his name, louder and louder, crowding around him.  At the peak of sound, his blindfold is slipped off and a mirror is held inches in front of his face.

He is scared, but everyone else is too, at what they have put him through.  Hostilities have been shown, but also love.  He relaxes, they hug him and laugh with him.  Rapport has been born.

On another day the cast, eyes closed, move to the center of the hall until they touch another person.  Eyes still closed, they gently explore each other's faces with their hands until they really feel each other.  Then they open their eyes and look, really look, at each other.  It is difficult to be other than loving and understanding after this kind of communication.

O'Horgan's "sensitivity exercises" were done nearly every day.  By the middle of the rehearsal period, the cast had become not a group of actors rehearsing, but a group of human beings who liked and understood each other, who had been through things together.  Instead of caring about themselves as individual egos and performers, they cared about relating to each other and "doing their thing" individually and collectively, for the audience.

O'Horgan's way generates this kind of feeling:  At the end of an exhausting day of rehearsal, he ran the cast through the finale of the show for the first time.  Just as the final note was played, the doors opened and co-authors Gerome Ragni and James Rado walked in, dead tired from a cross country flight.  The entire cast, most of whom had never seen them before, fell upon them, kissing, laughing, embracing.  Everyone, cast and crew, locked arms, joined in a huge circle and sang "This Is The Dawning Of The Age of Aquarius" at the top of their lungs.  And you will, hopefully, feel it and be a part of it as you experience HAIR.

Copyright Natoma Productions.