Musical Matinees (The Mavericks): HAIR!

HAIR (1979) is a musical anti-war comedy-drama film directed by Miloš Forman and adapted for the screen by Michael Weller, based on the 1968 Broadway musical Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical. Set against the backdrop of the hippie counterculture of the Vietnam era, the film focuses on a Vietnam War draftee who meets and befriends a "tribe" of hippies while en route to the army induction center. The hippies and their leader introduce him to marijuana, LSD, and their environment of unorthodox relationships and draft evasion.

The film stars an ensemble cast including John Savage, Treat Williams, Beverly D'Angelo, Annie Golden, Dorsey Wright, Don Dacus, Cheryl Barnes and Ronnie Dyson. Dance scenes were choreographed by Twyla Tharp and were performed by Tharp's dancers. Hair was nominated for two Golden Globes: Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture (for Williams).

All the Maverick Musicals include an introduction, discussion and follow-up Q&A with Professors and Film Scholars Richard Edwards and Vanessa Theme Ament. Both Edwards and Ament have written extensively about the American Musical and especially about the impact of the Maverick Musicals had, and continue to have on modern culture and to new directions and new possibilities in American and European cinema.

Host or Publisher Palm Springs Cultural Center