I was finishing my freshman year of college when this happened, and we hippie dippie college students were not amused! If this had not have happened, Augusta today would be the new Broadway, but alas, Broadway was not amused!
In retaliation and protest many of us radical collegians, not me, I was not that self confident, began the streaking rage of that period!
From this morning’s Augusta Chronicle:
TIME MACHINE
MARCH 30, 1972
Augusta police temporarily interrupted the performance of the rock opera "Hair" at Bell Auditorium after a nude scene at the end of the first act.
City Police Chief James Beck said 12 actors, the stage manager and company manager Richard Grayson would be charged with public indecency.
Grayson said that there was a confrontation between police, performers and himself backstage after the nude scene, and that police "disrupted the performance" by trying to take pictures of nude actors.
Augusta police were accused of hitting actor Kenny Ortega in the face with a camera while interrupting a performance of “Hair” in 1972. [FILE/THE
AUGUSTA CHRONICLE]
AUGUSTA CHRONICLE]
Actors charged that police action in taking the picture was against Union Equity rules, and one actress charged that police struck star Kenny Ortega in the face with their camera.
3 comments:
One wonders how many nude figures are found in the Vatican.
One might begin with the Stufetta del Bibbiena. "Raphael had designed his frescoed panels like a graphic novel, recounting the adventures of Venus, the goddess of love, and Cupid, the god of erotic desire, for Cardinal Bibbiena to admire as he lounged in his hot tub. At knee level, the original silver faucet was crafted into the face of a leering satyr. One panel showed the naked goddess stepping daintily stepped into her foam-fringed shell. In others, she admires herself in a mirror, lounges between Adonis’ legs and swims in sensual abandon. A couple of the frames, even more risqué, have been destroyed. One, recorded by an early visitor, showed Vulcan attempting to rape Minerva."
Wonder? Not really, there is context for the knowledgeable. Similarly, we have rape, murder, and carnage in old poplar tunes where even pregnant women and children are not spared. But the song is as often as not sung from the gallows, or even from Hell itself, where the perpetrator either repents or at least recounts the reasons for his judgement.
Ah, yes, the “Hair” debacle. I had just moved here from “up Nawath” (as I heard from the locals), Long Island...you can only imagine...
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