The school’s musical production of “Hair,” performed March 16-18, served as a first for many. It was sophomore and lead actress Samantha Heller’s first time in a leading role, band director Zachary Borquez’s first time conducting a live musical ensemble on stage, and sophomore and actor Jeremy Orriss’ first time pulling down his pants in front of an audience.

The idea of “Hair,” according to director Allan Hunt, is based around “a strong sense of unity within people.” The story focuses on the Vietnam draft, peace protests related to the Vietnam War and the hippie movement.

According to sophomore and actress Emily Audras, who played a school principal, the drama department had to cut many racial and sexual aspects from the play to cater to a high school cast and audience. Nevertheless, Audras said everybody truly “embraced their hippie-selves.”

“Finding your hippie-self and the more free side of yourself means being more accepting,” Audras said. “You could just move around as you pleased and lay on people who you weren’t familiar with and they would just grab your hair and start braiding it like ‘Who are you?’”

Heller said this year’s production differed from last year’s “Mary Poppins.”

“First of all, ‘Mary Poppins’ is a cute, little Disney play and ‘Hair’ is literally about drugs, hippies and sex. They’re fundamentally different. ‘Mary Poppins’ has always been more Broadway, classic style, and ‘Hair’ is a tribal, love-rock musical yelling ‘I believe in love!’” Heller said.

Borquez said he hopes that students find some of the musical’s themes relatable.

“It was good that the students got a glimpse of what it was like back in 1968 and hopefully found some familiar perspective or similarities,” Borquez said. “The ‘going against the man’ aspect of ‘Hair’ is for sure alive and well in any time period — not wanting to conform to a set expectation or standard.”

Sophomore and jazz guitarist Stephen Burt said he approves of the outgoing musical style of “Hair.”

“I love the end when I get to shake my hair out and go crazy on the guitar. I love psychedelic music and I got to experiment with a lot of effects,” Burt said. “‘Hair’ embodies freedom and comfortability everywhere. I mean having long hair is a big ‘screw you’ to anything conformist, especially with guys.”

While the drama department’s reworking of “Hair” captured the main themes of the musical — freedom, rebellion and love — not every student said they slipped into their characters easily.

Will Burgos, a junior who played an African-American hippie named Hud, said that, despite his Caucasian race, people generally welcomed his adaptation of the character. However, Hunt did add a few lines to alleviate any discomfort. For example, when another character says, “Hud, you’re white,” and when Hud is introduced, “That’s Hud, he thinks he’s chocolate but he’s really [whispered] vanilla!”

“I really loved developing my own take on Hud. It was a bit weird at first, but we put in a few extra jokes about it and it just felt natural,” Burgos said.

Like Burgos, Orriss said he adopted every part of his character, both the ordinary and extraordinary sides. Among the various nicknames Orriss’s character, Berger, got –– Banana Berger, Cheese Berger, unzipped Berger, Karma Berger and Pitts Berger –– he said he embraced the pull-‘em-down-and-take-‘em-off Berger at those moments.

“Getting into my character was strange at first, but I definitely had a good time,” Orriss said. “Taking my pants off and showing the audience my butt was probably the craziest thing I did.”

The show attracted a full house almost every night.

“This is probably the greatest show I’ve ever done and I’m so happy I was able to finish my senior year with a bang,” senior and lead actor Parker Green said.