Hair on Broadway is essential; it’s seriously one of the biggest parts in some actors and actresses’ transformations into their character. Imagine Lesli Margherita as Mrs. Wormwood in Matilda without her signature golden locks, or Ariel in the Little Mermaid without her iconic red hair? Hair is a larger part of Broadway than we think; it helps tell the story in a huge way by helping the audience identify the characters.
Wigs are a sticky subject. Some shows use a ton and some use very little. If/Then, Broadway’s contemporary musical about when choice meets chance (as pulled from their website) doesn’t really use many wigs. As a contemporary musical set in present time in a city, none of the characters need exaggerated hair. If/Then is a great example of a show that doesn’t need wigs to tell its story – but this doesn’t mean that there is no hair design! The performers need to keep their hair to the set design to keep the image of the character a certain way. Hair does not mean just wigs; it just means the overall image of hair on someone’s head is set as a design whether it be their real hair or a wig.
A show like WICKED is much different. As the show is set in Oz, the characters call for wild hairstyles, which means incorporating wigs. In a rare occasion, wig designs can change throughout the run of a show. In the recent Roundabout revival of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes, Sutton Foster starred as the charming Reno Sweeney and donned a curled blonde wig.
When Broadway powerhouse Stephanie J. Block stepped into the role later in the run, the team opted to give her a ginger-red wig instead of the blonde. I had the opportunity to go backstage at the show and I was told that they just decided that the ginger-red just looked better on Stephanie. In other words, changing the color helped tell the story better! But with a show like Legally Blonde or Hairspray, which have hair “types” in the title, obviously have to live up to that sort of hype. See, hair is a big part of theatre!
Now that we’ve established the difference of how the design and reason of hair on Broadway, we’ll get a little more specific. With wigs, audiences are oftentimes surprised to hear how much time, effort and money wigs cost. A standard Broadway wig can cost anywhere from $1,000 up. Imagine having to pay for not only a set of wigs for your show but for your understudies, swings and standbys, too. It gets expensive and that’s not all. Broadway is known for being premier, and that’s what wigs on Broadway aren’t party store wigs. Predominately, wigs used on Broadway are called lace front wigs. This creates the most realistic hairline possible for each wig, and is often a “partner” (as in they’re close to each other). It’s also common practice for wigs to be prepped between performances like restyling, putting them in curlers and just in general performing upkeep on them. The hair is delicate and requires a lot of care even after they are paid for and made; which is why shows that employ wigs also employ (in a more literal sense) a hair team that takes care of all the hair in the show (some cut the hair on the performers to keep the hair design the same).
While hair is a small part of what makes up the entire theatregoing experience, try and take a little closer look at the hair on the performer’s heads the next time you go to a live performance. You’ll find a lot of work goes into making it look how prestige (or messed up) it appears!