Hair Theater: A ‘Hair-sterical’ show with ’Hair-raising Fun
By Patricia Wynn Brown (Showgirl/Author)
Hair! A single strand could help convict you of crimes that can send you to prison for
the rest of your life. It’s a $40 billion a year industry in the United States. Hair can
cause tigers to go wild! (Just ask Siegfried and Roy. Some reports say the tiger who
attacked Roy was frightened by ‘big-haired’ women in the front row).
Martha Stewart wanted to see her hairdresser immediately upon her release from
prison. Jennifer Aniston took sanctuary at her longtime hairdresser’s house when she
split with Brad Pitt.
Hair! It’s dramatic!
That’s why I wrote a series of episodes about our comic and tragic
relationship with our hair. The show is called Hair Theater and it plays
to sold-out audiences (www.HairTheater.Net.
Everyone has a hair story and at some episodes the audience tells
their hair tales. Sometimes the story involves something insane that a
person did to their own hair in the name of beauty (Hairicide!).
Sometimes the hair stories shared at the show are admissions of hair
assaults. These crimes inevitably involve a big sister with hair dreams
for her little sister, henceforth known as “la victime.”
There are hair stories in the show series from history that
entertain and illuminate. For instance, when women cut their
long hair off in the 1920s and 30s into “The Bob” some citizens became alarmed. Women were freeing themselves from
the work and trouble of long hair and, naturally, anything that
would make life easier for women had to be trouble. The
Pennsylvania board of education at the time offered to pay
teachers $100 each not to bob their hair. Smelling salts were
on hand at the hair salons to aid fainting maidens seeing their
hair shorn. One newspaper headline read, “Woman Bobs Hair,
Husband Shoots Self.”
See? Very, very dramatic.
The Hair Theater shows’ success has lead to other good things in
addition to the laughter it brings to its audiences. The Hair Theater
Fund at The Columbus Foundation was formed to assist women in
Columbus, Ohio, USA with wigs necessitated by chemotherapy. Also,
I’ve written a book based on the audience stories, research, media
hair tales and my hairology thoughts.
The book is called Hair-A-Baloo: The Revealing Comedy and Tragedy
on Top of Your Head (available in June 2005 from www.iUniverse.com.
All the world is a stage and our hair plays a starring Diva role. If only it would always
remember its lines.
Photo credits:
- Book Cover: Adam Brouillette
- Me in character as Countess of Spit Curls: Steve Brown
