“Hair” in Asbury’s Carousel House

NJMonthly
NJ My Way
August 11, 2008 04:47 AM ET Permanent Link

It’s two revivals in one.“Hair,” the rock musical that revolutionized Broadway 40 years ago, is opening Friday as the first event held inside Asbury Park’s newly refurbished Carousel House, the boardwalk landmark that for decades sat empty and falling apart like much of this Shore town.
The show is being produced by ReVision Theater, which was founded in Asbury Park in November by members of the Genesius Theatre Group in New York. Stephen Bishop, one of the founders of ReVision, says he left New York for the Jersey Shore because the renaissance going on in Asbury provides good opportunities for the arts.
He also thinks it’s good for his production that another “Hair” revival recently opened at the Public Theater in New York. “Several people from that “Hair” helped us,” he says. “And lots of people don’t want to drive to New York, so they can come here to see us.”The play explores the hippie counterculture of the 1960s; it scandalized the nation with scenes that included profanity, drug use and sexuality in ways never before seen on the American musical stage. Still, songs such as “Aquarius,” the title song “Hair,” “Easy To Be Hard” “Good Morning Starshine,” and “Let The Sunshine In” became hits.
Bishop hopes staging the play at the Carousel House will be a hit too. “We were looking for alternative spaces, storefronts, garages, parks,” he says. “We had worked with [Asbury’s oceanfront developer] Madison Marquette and they were working on the Carousel House. We drove over and said: This will work, it’s a fantastic venue.”
The Carousel House was built in the late 1920s as part of the Casino entertainment complex on the south end of Asbury Park’s Boardwalk. During Asbury’s glory days as a resort, the building housed amusement rides including a large carousel. As the rides were dismantled through the 1980s the building fell into disrepair.
Madison Marquette has restored the copper roof and green cupola with elaborate trim, and reinstalled ornate glasswork windows. The show will be staged as theater-in-the-round. “It’s perfect for ‘Hair,” a show about hippies who come in and take over a space,” says Bishop. The show runs until August 31. Check here for times and tickets.