Nancy Harrington saw the original Broadway production of “Hair” with her high school boyfriend from front-row seats, which makes it thrilling to be working on the new production, she said, adding, “I grew up listening to ‘Hair.’ ”
As the show’s production stage manager she supervises the stage managers, sound operators, wardrobe personnel and other technical staff as well as the large cast. The job involves seeing to a slew of details every day, and on some days it might even require facing the audience.
“One evening Gavin came off stage, and he wasn’t feeling well,” she said of the actor Gavin Creel, who was nominated for a Tony as Claude. “At intermission I determined that he couldn’t go on for the second act, so I went out and told the audience that this wasn’t happening, and that we were going to have someone else joining the tribe and playing Claude for the second act.” Part of her job is to keep the understudies rehearsed and ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Such tasks are common for production stage managers, but “Hair” presents some show-specific challenges, since the performers spend a fair amount of time in the audience, mussing audience members’ hair or standing on their seats. “There are technical things you have to be sure of,” Ms. Harrington said, “that the seats are fastened down, the handles are fastened down.”
Production stage managers can become stern taskmasters, but Ms. Harrington is loath to create a lot of rules, she said, especially in a show about breaking them. “To be able to keep everybody in that hippie spirit, you need to be sort of loose and open,” she said.
She was struck by “Hair” decades ago and has found this revival equally revolutionary in its way. “The director, the musical director, the choreographer, all of the assistants and all of the stage managers are female,” she said. “It’s just terrific to see that because it never happens.”
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