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The classic musical about the era of free love, political protests and long hair is in its opening weekend at Capital Playhouse.
“The hair is the big issue,” said Troy Arnold Fisher, the production’s music director. “People don’t wear really long hair today, particularly men.”
The solution: wigs.
Wigmaster Michael Costain of Olympia has worked with opera companies and in theater, film and television, and began doing wigs for Capital Playhouse and other regional companies after he returned to the Northwest to be closer to his aging family members.
Costain makes some wigs by hand, using a process similar to the latch-hooking used to make rugs, but on a much smaller scale. “It’s tedious, and it’s laborious,” he said. During last week’s snow, he spent three days creating one wig.
It’s a rare skill these days, he said. He began studying theater and wanted to write, produce and direct his own shows. “I wanted to learn everything,” he said. When he took some classes on wigs, he realized he’d found his niche.
“I come from a long line of craftsmen,” he said. “We all tatted and embroidered in my family. As soon as we could walk, my mother kept our hands busy doing something.”
Besides creating wigs from scratch, Costain also modifies inexpensive wigs to create a more realistic look on a budget.
“Wigs you can buy generally have too much hair in them. That makes them look big. I’ll take hair out of them. Sometimes, different colors are added,” he said.
Normally, he says, the test of a good stage wig is whether critics or audiences comment on it. There were many wigs in 2009’s “A Little Night Music,” he said.
“We got no comments on them because everyone assumed it was the actors’ own hair growing out of their own head,” Costain said. “That was a successful show because we didn’t hear about it.”
In a show like “Hair,” though, wigs are going to be expected.
“That’s the challenge with this musical,” he said. “We have to do this, and if we are going to do this, it has to be realistic because it’s a small space and the audience is so close.”
Making realism even more challenging is that some actors won’t need wigs.
“We have several women who have appropriate hair for the show,” he said. “Putting wigs with real hair presents a problem.”
But Fisher said the wigs look great. “It’s been absolutely thrilling to see the transformation,” he said. “Everyone has that ’60s hair. There’s no sense they are wearing wigs. It looks real. That transports you to the ’60s.”
As for which actors didn’t need wigs, only their wigmaster knows for sure. “I don’t want to disclose that now,” Costain said. “You can guess when you come to see the show. We should have a door prize. ‘Who is wearing their own hair and who isn’t?’”
