Celebrating diversity with 'Hair'

Asbury Park troupe stages alternate production to one in Central Park

Monday, August 18, 2008
BY PETER FILICHIA

To paraphrase a famous Cole Porter lyric, is it Granada he sees, or only Asbury Park?

Both, in fact. Thomas Morrissey feels that ReVision Theatre, the new troupe he's co-founded, is in the right place and time to benefit from Asbury Park's continued renaissance.

"And because we're in such a diverse community," he says, "we decided to put on the most diverse show we could: 'Hair.'"

The famous 1968 rock musical had already been announced for a summer engagement in New York City's Central Park before Morrissey and his partners, David E. Leidholdt and Stephen Bishop Seely, chose it.

In Asbury Park, the musical is being staged in the Carousel on the Boardwalk by Andy Goldberg, who had an off-Broadway hit with "The Bomb-ity of Errors." Scoop Slone, the lead singer of the rock band Maslow, stars.

The 54-year-old Morrissey and his co-artistic directors are expecting a great many Baby Boomers.

"We'd like it if people from Deal and Spring Lake would drop by, too," he says. "They embraced 'Hair' when they were young, for this was the generation that broke the rules and helped change the perception of the Vietnam War.

"But," he says, "these kids believed they had the answers, and we now know they weren't always right. Sex and drugs don't cure things. So 'Hair' offers the good and bad of the era."

It was quite a different musical that got Morrissey interested in theater.

"'My Fair Lady,'" he says. "My parents and I came to New York from Davenport, Iowa, when I was about 5. Pretty soon into it, I whispered to my parents, 'I want to do that when I grow up."

"That," however, didn't necessarily mean performing, though Morrissey did plenty of that in community theaters and children's stages in Iowa.

"When I did summer stock," he says, "I became more aware of what it takes to put on a show. So I watched the people who did lights and sound. I went to the box office and learned the system of ticket-selling. I checked out how the press agents wrote their press releases. It wasn't just about performing for me."

In the '80s, Morrissey worked as a house manager for two Greenwich Village theaters and became a member of the illustrious Circle Repertory Company.

"It got too entrenched in doing one specific kind of play," Morrissey says, "and then it seemed to be repeating itself. And that's why they closed down."

Morrissey responded in 1995, a year before Circle folded, by starting a company called the Genesius Guild, named for the patron saint of actors. It centered on developing new work. ReVision, though, will do new and old works, hoping to mount three next year in a space that will become a 300-seat theater.

A redevelopment company named Madison Marquette has greatly helped. "They rehabilitated the Paramount Theatre in town, and they gave it to us for a recent benefit. That went so well, they gave us some money to do 'Hair,' too."

So sure is Morrissey that ReVision will succeed that he's bought a home in Asbury Park, though he's keeping his Manhattan digs as well.

Only one question left, and Morrissey knows it's coming before it's asked. "Yes, of course, we'll do the famous nude scene."

Peter Filichia may be reached at pfilichia@starledger.com or (973) 392-5995.