A Broadway Musical

I recently ran into some musicians from England and we got talking about movies and the music scene in general.   Eventually the conversation got around to one of my favourite comedies "A Shot in the Dark" featuring Peter Sellers.  It was filmed in England and was directed by Blake Edwards. 

In that movie Peter Sellers (playing Inspector Clouseau) stumbles into a nudist camp looking for suspects and clues to a murder. In one of the scenes he passes a group of musicians playing for the naked guests.  The group of musicians are also naked.  Well, apparently the musicians from England that I had just met knew these chaps. 

I guess the booking of that movie had some humorous overtones. They didn't know they would be nude extras as indicated by the script. Well, they finally agreed and weren't too embarrassed by the whole experience.   As it turned out, they became semi-famous for being in this very popular movie (a sequel to the highly successful Pink Panther movie). Later on they didn't mind boasting that yep, they were the musicians in that "much-talked-about" nude scene.

Some years ago when I was with the Stratford Festival Shakespearean Theatre we were playing in Ottawa at the Ottawa Arts Centre.  It was a rather new building and had about three stages that could run presentations simultaneously.   The rear of these theatres converged and shared a common meeting and assembling area in the back (a long corridor to designated dressing rooms). 

It so happens that we were there that day doing "Merchant of Venice".  Booked beside us was a Broadway play called "Hair". We got to talk to some of the travelling musicians that came with that show just before the performance. They were names I had heard of professionally from other shows and recordings.

Well "Hair" rang a bell with me as I remember vaguely reading about its musical contents. It was a play about the whole hippie culture and the social experience of that sub-culture during the 1960's and their Vietnam War feelings. However, my knowledge of that play was somewhat sparse and forgotten. 

It so happens that our Shakespearean play "The Merchant of Venice" and "Hair ended at the same time. Now a few of us Stratford musicians were walking through the common corridor to the dressing rooms. All of a sudden a stream of about 60 plus clamouring people came running towards us. We were all surprised and agog.  "Oh my God, they were all naked". I remember thinking, "Had we blundered into the wrong dressing room or something?" It was emotional bedlam.

Then it dawned on me. I remember that the last scene of "Hair" on stage is the entire cast naked. Here they were quite enthusiastically running towards their dressing rooms. They were just common ordinary actors and actresses doing their "theatre" thing as if this was nothing out of the ordinary (that of appearing in front of the audience without any clothes). Wow!

Oh well, "Hair" was a show about changing times and attitudes. Just then I realized that the musicians from Stratford also had to change with the times and accept this as entertainment. I think.  We were momentarily startled but then went about doing our thing and ignored what we had just witnessed. I remember I tried not to ogle or look surprised. It was difficult trying to look "cool" when in fact you weren't.

As we were packing away our instruments I got thinking, "Oh well, I guess this is the new Show Biz". It was a "hairy" experience that left one breathless..."barely".

No more puns, please.

Web space donated by Encore...The Concert Band www.encoretheconcertband.ca