The Roots of Hair

My friend and colleague Eric Grode has a new book out today about the creation and history of the musical Hair, which is a remarkably rich story of theatrical will and happenstance, art and commerce, experimentation and error--I should know, we're printing a long excerpt from the book in the January issue of American Theatre, and it was very hard to choose a section to pull out, it's all so good. As Eric explained in a recent email, he didn't just talk to all the surviving creators and contributors:

I even tracked down one of the Apollo 13 astronauts who walked out of the show at intermission. There are all sorts of incredible anecdotes--including a few that are relatively damning for an authorized history.

It's all true. This is one coffee table book that you won't be able to keep on the coffee table.