'Hair' Set as NBC's Next Live Musical

NBC will stage musical Hair for its next live production.

The announcement comes a few months after the critically-acclaimed NBC live staging of Jesus Christ Superstar on Easter Sunday. Hair Live! is currently slated to air in spring 2019.

According to Variety, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, who have executive produced each of NBC's live musicals since The Sound of Music, will executive produce the telecast.

Hair tells the story of a group of politically active hippies living a bohemian life in New York while fighting against and resisting the Vietnam War. Claude, his good friends Berger and Shela, and their "tribe" are growing up in the world of the sexual revolution while struggling with their rebellion against the war and their conservative parents and society.

Claude must decide whether to resist the draft as his friends have done, or succumb to the pressures of conservative America to serve in Vietnam, compromising his principles and beliefs.

After an off-Broadway debut in October 17, 1967, Variety writes, the show opened on Broadway in April 1968 and ran for 1,750 performances. Hair quickly became a cultural phenomenon that spawned a cast album and a number one song on the pop charts for the Fifth Dimension. Simultaneous productions in cities across the United States and Europe followed, including a London production that ran for 1,997 performances.

The show has been staged around the world, spawning dozens of recordings of the musical, including the including the 3 million-selling original Broadway cast recording.

Some of the songs from its score became Top 10 hits, and a feature film adaptation was released in 1979, directed by two-time Oscar winner Milos Forman and choreographed by Twyla Tharp.

A Broadway revival directed by Diane Paulus opened in 2008 at the Delacorte Theatre as part of the Public Theatre's Shakespeare in the Park and then moved to Broadway in 2009, earning strong reviews and winning the Tony and Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Musical.

Hair Live! will be produced by Universal Television, MGM Television and Zadan/Meron Productions.

The musical comes as NBC's previously announced staging of Bye Bye Birdie starring Jennifer Lopez was once again delayed due to the singer/actress' busy schedule. Now, it will not air until 2019 at the earliest.

A live version of Aaron Sorkin'sA Few Good Men is also still without a premiere date.

NBC launched the current trend for live musicals with 2013's The Sound of Music. They followed it with 2014's Peter Pan, 2015's The Wiz and 2016's Hairspray. They all aired during the holiday season, but NBC did not have one ready for 2017. NBC has portrayed them as must-see live television, and audiences have tuned in.