Hair
Ragni had been involved with The Open Theater and its experimental techniques since it was originally part of the Living Theatre in 1962. He had come up with the new name in the split from the Living Theatre. In 1966 The Open Theatre began rehearsals for the Megan Terry play Viet Rock. Ragni took a leading role in the show and was in the cast when the play opened at the Martinique Theatre in New York where it had a successful run.
The show, and the experimental techniques associated with it, gave him the inspiration to work with Rado on a musical about the hippies and their environment. Research had to be undertaken so they associated with a group of youths in the East Village who were dropping out and dodging the draft. They talked to characters in the streets and people they knew, read lots of articles in the press and media about hippies and kids being kicked out of school for growing their hair long. Soon the lyrics to thirteen songs — "Ain't Got No", "I Got Life", "Reading and Writing", "Don't Put It Down", "Sodomy", "Colored Spade", "Manchester, England", "Frank Mills", "We Look at One Another", "Hair", "Aquarius", "Easy to be Hard", "Good Morning Starshine" and "Where Do I Go?" — and a first draft of the show titled Hair were complete. Two of these thirteen songs were removed, many were revised and titles changed and more were written.
Once they had a complete draft of the show that they liked they brought it to producer Nat Shapiro for consideration. His response to the songs was "Where's the music?". He then put them together with composer Galt MacDermot, who was given the script and came back with music for the handful of songs that were then specified in the script. Their agent, Janet Roberts, then tried to sell it to Broadway producers but it was rejected by all. Joseph Papp, of the New York Shakespeare Festival Theatre, called and said he wanted to produce it at his new theatre on Lafayette Street. Gerald Freedman was the artistic director and was signed on to direct the first production of the show. On October 29, 1967 Hair opened at The Public Theater with Ragni as Berger, MacDermot as one of the phony cops that bust the show at the end of the first act, and Rado as Claude (for the first ten performances only). Michael Butler attended the opening and many subsequent performances and was dissatisfied that Rado was not regularly playing Claude as he felt Rado had a natural affinity for the part.
Butler was immediately interested and wanted to move it to Broadway and bought the rights from Papp for $50,000 and got ready to stage a whole new grander production with Tom O'Horgan, who Ragni knew from off-Broadway, directing. In the meantime the show moved to a nightclub in Midtown, called Cheetah, where it had a month-long run. When O'Horgan signed there was a cast overhaul and Alvin Ailey was hired as choreographer with Bertrand Castelli sharing directorial duties as executive producer. Ailey left the show early on to be replaced by choreographer Julie Arenal, assistant to Anna Sokolow, who had choreographed the off-Broadway run.
On April 29, 1968 the show re-opened in its complete revised form at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway. Rado and Ragni reprised their roles from the off-Broadway production. MacDermot was now the show's musical director. The songs became hit singles for Liza Minnelli, Nelson Riddle, The Staples Singers, MacDermot himself, Quincy Jones, Three Dog Night, The Cowsills, Madeline Bell, Paul Jones, Sonja Kristina, The 5th Dimension, Oliver, Caterina Valente,and Barbra Streisand. The Broadway cast Hair album on RCA Records topped the US charts for a year. The 1970 album DisinHAIRited contained earlier songs cut from the revised production.
The Broadway production was a traumatic experience for Ragni. He became wealthy, his marriage broke up and he fell from mainstream society. He joined a Christian cult and contributed money to the Black Panther Party and Yippie causes. Not long after the Broadway production he and Rado went to Los Angeles and played their signature roles in that production. They stayed for five months, making changes to the show as they performed. When they returned to the Broadway production his habit of making changes to the show without telling the staff became a bit of a nuisance. In one incident they were arrested after walking nude down the aisle with Rado during a performance. At another point there were guards outside the theatre with Ragni and Rado barred from entering. When the conflict was resolved all the changes were written into the script and they rejoined the show. Soon after Ragni moved into the touring companies, playing Berger for many performances in many cities. He very nearly became the role that he was playing onstage.
Shortly after Hair became a big hit Ragni, Rado, and Viva (perhaps the biggest of Andy Warhol's "superstars") made the movie Lions Love in Los Angeles, directed by Agnes Varda. Full of improvised scenes involving the three stars, who are supposedly living together in L.A. while waiting for a film to start shooting, the movie is probably one of the best film records of Rado and Ragni. The pair did not appear in the film version Hair, directed by Milos Forman in 1979. Both Rado and Ragni were quite upset by the film and they never approved of it, although it was generally well received.
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