Hair – “The American Tribal Love Rock Musical” – is going to try a new way of reaching out to its audience. Starting tomorrow, the show’s finale number where the cast and audience mix and mingle and dance to “The Age of Aquarius” will be recorded in high definition video and posted to the show’s web page. The camera, controlled from the show’s light booth, will follow a pre-programmed path to pan across the stage and zoom in on cast and audience members. Anyone visiting the site can then download the video, post it to their Facebook page, or send out a tweet to all their friends.
Make no mistake – this is a first for the relatively stodgy Broadway theatre scene. Every new show these days has a web page, and some have videos of scenes or musical numbers from the show but Hair is about the only show where cast and audience actually interact during the show.
What’s in it for Hair? The best possible publicity for a show heading into its second year on the great white way – favorable word of mouth. Being able to spread the word about the show through social networks will probably give the box office a significant boost and keep the show running (and profitable) for many months.
Here’s link to a story in today’s New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/theater/02hair.html?hpw
