HAIR

Gerome Ragni (born Jerome Bernard Ragni; September 11, 1935 – July 10, 1991) was an American actor, singer, and songwriter, best known as one of the stars and co-writers of the 1967 musical Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical. On June 18, 2009, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

James Alexander Radomski (January 23, 1932 – June 21, 2022), known professionally as James Rado, was an American actor, playwright, director, and composer, best known as the co-author, along with Gerome Ragni, of the 1967 musical Hair. He and Ragni were nominated for the 1969 Tony Award for best musical, and they won for best musical at the 11th Annual Grammy Awards.

Galt MacDermot was born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of a Canadian teacher and diplomat. He was educated at Upper Canada College and Bishop’s University (Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada). He received a Bachelor of Music from Cape Town University, South Africa and made a study of African music his specialty. He also studied the piano privately with Neil Chotem.

Galt MacDermot won his first Grammy Award for the Cannonball Adderley recording of his song “African Waltz” (the title track of the album of the same name) in 1960. He moved to New York City in 1964 where, three years later, he wrote the music for the hit musical HAIR, which he later adapted for the 1979 film. Its Broadway cast album won a Grammy Award in 1969. His next musicals were Isabel’s a Jezebel and Who the Murderer Was, which featured British progressive rock band Curved Air. Galt MacDermot had another hit with the musical Two Gentlemen of Verona, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical. For that show, MacDermot was nominated for a Tony for best music and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music. His later Broadway musicals included Dude and Via Galactica and The Human Comedy.

MacDermot’s film soundtracks include Cotton Comes to Harlem, a 1970 blaxploitation film starring Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques and Redd Foxx, based on Chester Himes’ novel of the same name; Rhinoceros starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, and directed by original Broadway Hair director Tom O’Horgan; and Mistress. He writes his own orchestrations and arrangements for his theatre and film scores.

In 1979, MacDermot formed the New Pulse Jazz Band, which performs and records his original music. The band was the on-stage band in the Broadway revival of HAIR. MacDermot’s work also includes ballet scores, chamber music, the Anglican liturgy, orchestral music, poetry, incidental music for plays, band repertory and opera. In 2009 Galt MacDermot was inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. In 2010 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from SOCAN.

James Vásquez is a Resident Artist of The Old Globe Theatre, where he recently directed Hair on the Lowell Davies Festival Stage, and Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas! He received the Craig Noel Award for Outstanding Direction of a Musical in 2018 for In the Heights at Moonlight Stage Productions and in 2010 for Sweeney Todd at Cygnet Theatre Company. His other recent directing credits include Goodspeed Musicals, Dallas Theater Center, Denver Center Theatre Company, and The Children›s Theatre Company. Mr. Vásquez is an amateur gardener, lover of dogs, and graduate of The Juilliard School.

Mayte Natalio is from Queens, New York by way of Dominican parents. She studied at the LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts and SUNY Purchase (BFA). Mayte began her career as a concert dancer and has performed and toured nationally and internationally with several companies, including the Parsons Dance Company, Camille A. Brown and Dancers, Kyle Abraham’s A.I.M and Darrell Moultrie. She has also performed with pop artists Mylene Farmer and Kanye West as well as in several regional and Off Broadway productions. TV & Film credits include episodes of Neil Patrick Harris’s Best Time Ever, Project Runway All Stars, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live (also assistant choreographer to Camille A. Brown), Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Amazon Prime’s Harlem. Theater choreography credits include The Winter’s Tale (Dallas Theater Center/ Public Works), Runaways (NYU) Into The Woods (Barrington Stage Company), Measure for Measure (The Public Theater/ Mobile Unit 2019), Love in Hate Nation (Two River Theater), Hair (The Old Globe), Kiss My Aztec (Hartford Stage), How To Dance In Ohio ( Syracuse Stage), La Hora Santa written, directed and choreographed by Mayte for Ars Nova’s Vision Residency.  Broadway: Associate Choreographer, for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf.