By Raphael Sugarman
You couldn’t blame a producer or theater devotee last summer for having doubts about the wisdom of mounting a revival of “Hair,” the iconic 1960s musical.
True, the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the candidacy of Barack Obama and key national votes regarding sexual equality provided a perfect backdrop for a musical like “Hair.” Still, it was unclear how audiences would react to the ’60s battle cry, “Turn off, tune in and drop out,” at a time of almost unprecedented unemployment and a global financial meltdown. Would they see the messages of “Hair” as trite and naively utopian or prescient and wisei
What the doubters should have done was simply ask Long Island City resident Anthony Hollock, who plays “A-Tone,” a member of the chorus, or “tribe,” in the current award-winning Broadway production of “Hair.” He firmly believes that “Hair”’s central themes are more important than ever.
“That generation really stood up for something,” said Hollock, who is 25. “Nowadays, kids will get online and do Facebook and other social networking. In the ’60s, they wanted to know about the next bill that was being signed and what was going on with the troops.”
The uncommon and meteoric rise of the current production of “Hair” mirrors Hollock’s own career as a New York actor. Hollock calls his own emergence “unexplainable” and discussing it still makes him rather breathless.
Born and raised in Butler, Pa., he can remember checking the “Hair” original soundtrack out of the local library. He was first cast in a production of the musical while attending the acting program at Point Park University. “I got to sing the flag song,” Hollock recalled, referring to “Don’t Put it Down,” a number in the musical’s first act. The little denim vest that he wears on the Broadway stage every night is the same one he wore in that college show, he admitted.
After arriving in New York four years ago, the kid from small-town Middle America was so intent on being in a professional production of “Hair” that he went to an Equity principal audition for the musical, though he did not yet have his Equity card from the actors’ union.
“People without cards can sit for hours waiting for an audition and then be told that they can’t see you that day — it happens all the time,” said Hollock.
But Hollock got his shot in front of the producers that day, and they clearly saw a lot more in him than just his long, curly hair. He was cast as a member of the tribe when the show opened for a three-night run at the Delacorte Theater in the summer of 2007. The reception to those performances was so positive that the musical was presented at the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park festival last summer. “Hair” opened on Broadway on March 31 and has garnered both the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award as best musical revival this year.
Though the musical has been tinkered with on numerous occasions since it debuted at the Public in the fall of 1967, the heart of the story remains unchanged. “Hair” is about a group of bohemian young people who are politically active, particularly concerning conscription and the Vietnam War. The tribe members espouse pacifism, the mind-expanding possibilities of recreational drugs and the joys of sexual experimentation. Many of them reject their parents’ values as excessively rigid, conservative and judgmental.
Though he describes his own parents as devoutly Catholic and traditional, Hollock said that their values and his own upbringing were anything but stifling.
“My family is so theatrical within themselves — we are always making jokes and making faces,” he said of his father John, mother Gloria and brothers Andrew and Alex. “My mother should be on stage herself, but she is too shy. She is always telling me that I am living her dream.”
Most important for Hollock, his family has accepted his gay lifestyle and even refer to his partner of two years as “my son,” he said.
Since his thrilling ride with the musical began two years ago, two seminal events have occurred in Hollock’s life that also seem to speak to “Hair”’s unlikely coexisting themes: the willingness to exhibit childlike and campy frivolity in one’s personal life, alongside strongly held political views and a vision of a more benevolent society.
This past April, Hollock was crowned as “Mr. Broadway” in the third annual “Broadway Beauty Pageant” for male actors, held at Symphony Space. Hollock, coined “Mr. ‘Hair,” competed against other actors including “Mr. Little Mermaid” and “Mr. Wicked” in a pageant that included the traditional pageant swimsuit, talent and interview segments.
The evening raised more than $30,000 for the Ali Forney Center, which provides shelter for homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in New York.
During the same time period, Hollock and his partner, Martin Gould Cummings, formed MGC Productions, a LGBT-focused company designed to “promote human equality.”
Hollock, who said he would one day like to have his own kids, believes that the issues of gay marriage and child adoption fit in perfectly with “Hair”’s “love and peace” sensibility.
“On many nights, when we are singing ‘Let the Sun Shine In,’ I am thinking that I hope a small beam of light is entering people’s’ hearts,” he said. “There is so much darkness in the world that when a whole group of people simply wants to love their partners the same as anyone else, it seems silly to deny them that right.”
“Hair” is playing at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. 302 W. 45 St.
