Neighbor News
Mountain Play repeats history with Summer of Love concert
Mountain Play celebrates music festival's 50-year anniversary June 10 with Jefferson Starship, "Hair," and others in mountain-top concert
Out-of-this-world bay views, a massive stone-lined seating area and, for the past 100-plus years, an annual large-scale production (most often a musical) harnessing the talent of local actors. These are attributes for which Mt. Tamalpais’ 4000-seat Cushing Memorial Amphitheater is known to local playgoers, bikers, hikers and passersby. But how about its past as a venue for Jim Morrison and Grace Slick?
This year the mountain theater is being remembered for another unique, but little-known distinction: having contained the hippie-packed, love laden, star-studded, first outdoor music festival in the fabled Summer of Love. Buried in Google, you can find footage of the concert, narrated in German.
Mount Tamalpais’ Magic Mountain Festival occurred on June 10, 1967 preceding the famed Monterey Pop Festival by just a few days. The Mountain Play Association has decided to celebrate this golden anniversary on June 10 by producing a day of live music performances, culminating in a concert version of the musical “Hair.”
Gracing the line-up at the mountain-top festival will be Jefferson Starship, in a nod to Jefferson Airplane’s performance of their movement-defining music in that very spot 50 years ago. The band’s current incarnation, includes original Jefferson Airplane member, David Freiberg, and Jefferson Starship of the 1980s veteran, Donny Baldwin.
“The artists of 1967 had something to say...and they amplified it through rock and roll,” says Mountain Play Artistic Producer Eileen Grady who feels “inspired” to work in a theater with such a rich history.
When planning the performance calendar a while back, Grady realized that June 10 would be “50 years to the day” after the 1967 Magic Mountain Festival and was moved to create a commemorative performance. Since the Mountain Play Association mounts shows from the musical theater canon, vastly-produced, skill-driven spectacles at that, a performance of “Hair” seemed a perfect way for the company to honor its rock n’ roll history while doing what it does best.
“Hair,” musical theater’s answer to the 60s, was first produced in 1967 and embraces all the signature themes of the time: free love, pacifism, equality, and pot. Acid and flag-burning, too.
Grady says that the association wanted to “celebrate the artists that gave voice to a generation,” and also, she says, indicating the work of this year’s performers, to “celebrate the artists who were inspired by that event, and continue the same meaningful art.”
Grady adds that the emerging artists showcased in this year’s festival “are working with the same of sense of purpose behind their music.”
She says, “If you pause for a second and you realize who was there before you, it’s an honor. It’s an honor to walk the same path.”
Former longtime Marin resident, Jeff Wiesen, who currently lives and works as an actor in Los Angeles, will direct this piece. In another level of history repeating itself, Wiesen appeared in the role of Berger, along with his now-wife, Erica Lamkin, who appeared in the ensemble, in the Mountain Play’s 2007 production of “Hair.”
The 2017 Magic Mountain Festival will perform June 10. Tickets are $25 - $40 for a full day of music performances, “groovy merchandise” sales, food, face painting and stilt-walkers. Visit mountainplay.org or call 415-383-1100 for tickets and parking and shuttle information.
