Um... how does she "wash that man out of her hair" with a wig?
Madame Morrible: "So you take the chicken, now it must be a white chicken. The corpse can be any color. And that is the spell for lost luggage!" - The Yellow Brick Road Not Taken
Um, Mary Martin didn't wear a wig... that was her own hair. She deliberately cut it shorter than usual so it would be dry in virtually minutes. She shampooed her hair on stage at every performance.
An inventive showwoman, she had the idea of actually shampooing her hair onstage every night while singing SOUTH PACIFIC's, "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out-a My Hair." And so she did—more than 1,000 times.
Why did Kelli O'Hara cut her hair for South Pacific if she was wearing a wig in it?
"People have their opinions and that doesn't mean that their opinions are wrong or right. I just take it with a grain of salt because opinions are like as*holes, everyone has one".
-Felicia Finley-
1. The producers could film her getting her haircut to share with us at BWW
2. She wanted to get the feel of the character
3. Short hair is easier to put under a wig
4. She felt like it
"All our dreams can come true -- if we have the courage to pursue them." -- Walt Disney
We must have different Gods. My God said "do to others what you would have them do to you". Your God seems to have said "My Way or the Highway".
I'm pretty sure she didn't use a wig. At least when I asked her about it early in previews, she said that she hadn't been using a wig. Did they add one later?
I believe they started previews without a wig, there were some difficulties, and then she got one. It was all over the boards(must have been a slow news week...) last year when it happened.
"Don't thank your parents, if you were raised in a nurturing environment you wouldnt be in show business"--Conan O'Brien at the 2006 Emmy Awards
I don't have the energy to dig it out now, but Stage Directions did an article about the South Pacific sound design a while back and this was dicussed. I am sure it is archived on their website.
They discuss that most of the cast wears DPA body mics, but Kelli wears Countryman miniature mics because they are very water resistant. As with most leads, she wears two mics at all times. They are, indeed, under the wig. Since it is a close cropped wig, there is not room to hide the battery packs under there as well, so they are hidden in her costume. For the shower scene, the battery packs are hidden in her bra / upper part of the bikini. Apparently, during tech, the battery packs were put to the ultimate test when O'Hara dropped them in a toilet.
Yes, she is miked. Yes, she sings it live. Yes, she wears a wig.