This Christmas get ready to let in some much needed sunshine as the boys and girls of the critically acclaimed revival of HAIR bring their peace, love and flower power to the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto for a limited holiday engagement.
The production won Best Musical (Revival) at the 2009 Tony Awards and has been getting rave reviews as it has toured across North America. Original Broaday cast members Gavin Creel and Will Swenson were both seen last year in Toronto (Gavin in concert promoting his solo material and Will in the pre-Broadway run of Priscilla Queen of the Desert) and Toronto gets to see brand new tribe members! Now two new long-haired fellas take on the roles of Berger and Claude understudy for the Toronto engagement of the tour.
Steel Burkhardt (Berger) and Marshal Kennedy Carolan (Claude Understudy) were both on hand before the show opened to greet the press. BWW was thrilled to spend an afternoon with the boys taking photos in the gorgeous Royal Alex and having a no-holds barred conversation about everything and anything, including marriage equality, the Occupy movements, It Gets Better and Kim Kardashian:
Is this your first time in Toronto?
MKC: Yep! I’m from California originally and live in New York now. Of course so far I’ve only seen Toronto through a cab window so can’t really comment on the city yet. I’m a bit worried since I hear it gets a lot colder here so I’ve packed all my jackets and scarves!
Since you will be spending the holidays in Toronto, do you have any special plans for how you will celebrate?
MKC: We are having a Christmas Eve dinner hosted by the company and then we get Christmas Day off so the cast is getting together and doing a Secret Santa. I think Toronto at the holidays will be fun, it’s an urban city so in that sense we feel at home.
SB: I’m getting a tree and going all out! I’m going to decorate and celebrate with my dog. She’s a little French Bulldog named Luna, who will probably end up eating most of the tree and the ornaments.
Do you find as actors you miss getting to have “traditional” holiday celebrations?
SB: This is actually the first major holiday I’ve missed with my family so I’m not really sure how it’s going to go. But even when working on Broadway, the tough thing is the weekend shows. We do five shows in a weekend, so we don’t have the typical Friday/Saturday nights that most people get. Basically any friends who are in the ‘business’ you never get to see. And of course you can’t do a normal dinner because you have to make that 7:30 call time, so we always end up eating at 5pm with the early birds!
This production had a rabid fan base in NYC, with many fans coming back over and over again. Has it been similar on the road?
MKC: We have had some people who have come out to over half the shows when we’ve been in a city for just one week. It’s amazing. And we have people who travel just to see us as we hit different cities. We had one guy from Liverpool who works for the BBC and he has come to NYC, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco and San Diego. That’s dedication.
Now you guys are aware that Toronto had a production of HAIR fairly recently that wasn’t very well received…
SB: In 1969 you had a great one! Or a smaller one not too long ago…
Nope, this was a large scale production that really never took off. Given the poor reaction the city had to that show, tell us what makes this production different? Why should Torontonians come out to see this version of HAIR?
MKC: Well there are a lot of interpretations of the show because it’s something you can do in so many ways, so you have to try it out to see if you like it!
SB: Exactly. NYC did a production a few years back with buzzed heads. Everyone had buzzed heads and no one had hair, not even the girls. Not quite sure how that one worked out.
MKC: Our production won a lot of awards in NYC though so hopefully that proves to Toronto that it’s worth seeing.
