It’s the Yin and Yang of Lehigh Valley summer theater.

It’s polar opposites on the Broadway musical spectrum.

It’s Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre (MSMT).

This year, MSMT again is staging the radical and new, and the tried and true, in the American musical theater canon.

For its 37th season, MSMT presents the revolutionary rock musical “Hair,” June 14 - July 2, and the classic musical, “My Fair Lady,” July 12 - 30. The family children’s show is a really big show, “Wild,” a circus performance, June 28 - July 29.

“I’ve directed a play here every summer for 37 years,” says Charles Richter, MSMT co-founder who next year celebrates his 40th year with the Muhlenberg College Department of Theatre and Dance.

MSMT often has alternated traditional Broadway musicals with nontraditional Broadway musicals, no more so than for the 2016 summer season.

“I love this kind of thing: ‘Gypsy’ and ‘In the Heights’ [were the 2016 shows]. Those were a little closer in that they were both in their times radical departures. But this season, it’s wildly eclectic,” says Richter, Muhlenberg College Director of Theater, and Professor, Directing, Theater History, and Theory.

“One one hand, we’re doing a musical that marked the end of the Golden Age of Broadway. There was no looking back after ‘Hair.’”

The MSMT production of “Hair” commemorates the 50th anniversary of its original Broadway run.

Continues Richter, “And, on a certain level, ‘My Fair Lady’ represented the height of artistry in the American musical.”

“Golden Age of Broadway Musicals”

“My Fair Lady” opened in 1956 in the midst of “The Golden Age of Broadway Musicals,” roughly from 1927 with the opening of “Show Boat” until the 1964 with the opening of “Fiddler on the Roof.” There followed “Hair” (1967), and other predominantly non-book musicals, including “Company” (1970), “Godspell,” (1971), and “Pippin” (1972).

The original Broadway production of “My Fair Lady” received 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Director (Moss Hart), Leading Actor, Musical (Rex Harrison, as Professor Henry Higgins) and Leading Actress, Musical (Julie Andrews, as Eliza Doolittle).

Harrison reprised his role, receiving a best actor Oscar, opposite Audrey Hepburn as Eliza, in the 1964 movie version, which received a Best Picture Oscar and a Best Director Oscar for George Cukor.

Richter, a Broadway musical theater professor and connoisseur, analyzes “My Fair Lady” thusly:

“It took the American musical theater form to a higher level. It has a glorious, lush theater score. It has the most sophisticated libretto that anybody ever attempted for a Broadway musical. Alan Lerner and Frederick Loewe were considered the geniuses of the form. ‘Paint Your Wagon’ [1951], ‘Brigadoon’ [1947], ‘Camelot’ [1960].

“All the elements of the musical came together [in ‘My Fair Lady’]. The songs grew organically out of the action. Everything in the show was very well-motivated. It’s on everybody’s Top 10 musical theater list.

Muhlenberg Summer Theatre Mission

“The [Muhlenberg] summer theater, at the core of our mission, is preserving the great heritage of the American musical. It’s a show [‘My Fair Lady’] that we’ve done once before, more than 20 years ago. We certainly felt it was a show that deserved revival. In fact, we’ve been a bit prophetic because the first New York revival [at Lincoln Center] is coming next year.”

For Richter, “My Fair Lady” has a special place in his heart:

“Growing up in a Jewish household on Long Island, everyone had that album [‘My Fair Lady’]. The original cast album was a hit.”

The Broadway show cast album, released April 2, 1956, topped the Billboard charts in 1957, 1958 and 1959 for 15 weeks, including eight consecutive weeks.

With such toe-tappin’ and hummable tunes, among them, “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?,” “With a Little Bit of Luck,” “The Rain in Spain,” “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “On the Street Where You Live,” and “Get Me to the Church on Time,” it’s no wonder that the “My Fair Lady” cast album went “to the toppermost of the poppermost” (to quote John Lennon’s early-days exhortation to his Beatles’ mates).

“If you’re serious about musical theater, this is one you have to take on and figure out. I look at the challenge as to discover the play, and to discover the greatness of the play. This is one that I’m ready to take on. It’s the first time I’m directing it,” says Richter.

“My Fair Lady” cast

And since, as it’s said in theater and movies, casting is all, Richter didn’t have to wait for his Henry Higgins.

“I knew for the past two seasons, Jarrod Yuskauskas [Moravian Academy Director of Theater] has done a great job as the leading man [at MSMT]: Horace in ‘Hello, Dolly’ [2015] and Herbie and in ‘Gypsy’ [2016]. I knew it was time to put him front and center. It’s not often that you have an actor who can play Henry Higgins.

“My next challenge as a director was to find Eliza Doolittle. One of our [Muhlenberg] grads, Meredith Doyle, who’s done some supporting roles, did a wonderful audition.

“And other really exciting development is that Robert Fahringer [Catasauqua School District Secondary English Teacher], who played Alfred Doolittle in the first [MSMT] show, is back in that role.

“The production fell together very nicely. We’re doing it in the Baker Theatre [in the Trexler Pavilion for Theatre and Dance], which is our more intimate venue.

“In a way, ‘My Fair Lady’ is a play with songs. It’s very much about these two people. It’s a much more psychological play.”

That said, the MSMT production will boast a 14-piece orchestra, with Ed Bara as music director and conductor. Karen Dearborn is choreographer.

“It’s going to be an intimate production, but it’s going to be a joy to watch a piece that’s so beautifully-crafted.”

The hits of “Hair”

“Hair,” which is directed by Jim Peck, Muhlenberg College Professor, Directing, Performance Studies, and Theater History, and Associate Dean for Diversity Initiatives, returns MSMT to the Empie Theatre in Baker Center for the Arts at Muhlenberg.

“It’s a very expansive show. If ‘My Fair Lady’ represents the pinnacle of the Broadway musical, ‘Hair’ is the first major rock musical, and I don’t think anyone’s topped it as to the score. The music that these guys wrote is astonishing.”

When asked if he thinks “Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical,” which is its full title, might offend older members of the audience, Richter laughs, “This was the musical when we were young.”

With music by Galt MacDermot, lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and book by Rado and Ragni, “Hair,” in its 1968 Broadway production, was nominated for a Best Musical and Best Director (Tom O’Horgan) Tony and received a Grammy for Best Score from an Original Cast Show Album.

“They came up with a score that epitomized where the world was in that troubled time,” says Richter. “And did it with a lot of hooks. On one hand, the lyrics are compelling and shocking and the music, yes it’s rock, but it’s also very beautiful. Nobody has managed to come up with a musical that has topped it as far as the sheer quality of the writing. It was also all over the charts. It produced a lot of hits.”

The biggest hit from “Hair” was “Aquarius-Let the Sunshine In,” charting at No. 1 for six weeks in 1969 on the Billboard 100 and a Grammy Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Group for The 5th Dimension. Other songs that charted included the title song, “Hair,” a No. 2 hit on the Billboard 100 in 1969 for the Cowsills; “Easy to be Hard,” a No. 4 hit on the Billboard 100 in 1969 for Three Dog Night, and “Good Morning Starshine,” a No. 3 hit on the Billboard Top 100 in 1969 for Oliver.

Richter was there

Richter was in the audience of the first preview of the Broadway production of “Hair.” Recalls Richter, “Dad worked at Bloomingdales. I’d take the bus and subway to Manhattan. I would have lunch with my father. He would give me give five bucks. And I would see a matinée.

“‘Hair’ was unforgettable. It broke the boundaries of the stage. The actors were in the audience. I remember being there. It was a typical Broadway audience. It wasn’t a bunch of hippies The music was so attractive. It held people. Its depiction of America at that time was accurate.

“It shows America at a time of extreme change. These are questions that we’re going through now. That makes the play more relevant. It shows where we came from and how we got to where we are today, be it issues of race, of gender, of America’s place in the world as a world power. All of these issues the show confronts squarely. When we chose the show, we were excited about bringing the show back.”

But the big question that inquiring minds want to know is: Will there be nudity in the MSMT production of “Hair”?

“We don’t know yet,” Richter replies.

“When I saw the first preview, there was not nudity. There’s [subsequently] been a split second [of nudity] at the end of the first act. It’s really not necessary for the play to work. James Peck, who’s directing ‘Hair,’ says nudity is not required. It might happen and it might not happen,” Richter says coyly.

“The hard thing about casting today is finding people who can sing rock music, and finding the musicians.”

Peck, who directed MSMT’s 2016 production of “In the Heights,” is reunited with musical director Ed Bara and choreographer Samuel Antonio Reyes. Vince Di Mura is conductor.

“The charts demand a lot of improvisation. The musical ensemble of nine is a rock band with brass.

“Hair is a part of that musical heritage” [of the American musical;” says Richter.

“Wild,” Atlas Circus Company’s world-premiere as MSMT’s children’s production, Black Box Theatre, Trexler Pavilion, builds on the Muhlenberg Department of Theatre and Dance circus program, begun four years ago.

“Wild” has aerial acrobatics, clowning, juggling, magic and dance.

“It’s a circus show with a narrative. We’re going to be creating the show from the ground up. We’ve become an incubator for new children’s theater,” Richter says.

Tickets and information: muhlenberg.edu/SMT; 484-664-3333