Backstage with Tommy's wig supervisor Judith Haugh

By Tom Moran 

TheaterWeek July 11-17,1994


Receiving a phone call from a total stranger who found your phone number scribbled 
on a wall next to a payphone usually isn't the sort of thing you tend to remember 
fondly in later years. But in Judith Haugh's case it brought her to Broadway--and 
changed her life. 

Walk 
through the stage door of the St. James theatre an hour or so before performance 
of Tommy, hang a sharp right, and you enter the claustrophobic domain 
of Judith Haugh, wig supervisor. Since the show's elaborate electronic equipment 
takes up every conceivable inch of wing space, the cast uses Haugh's wig room 
as the unofficial green room. During a performance the action there is as frantic 
and as carefully choreographed as anything onstage. "Stand in the wrong place," 
Haugh mentions calmly as I enter, "and you're liable to get an elbow in the 
mouth." 







Stryofoam heads glare down at us from their perches on the wall. They display 
a wide variety of wigs, some intended for cast members you didn't even realize 
wore wigs in the show ("So many of our young men," Haugh sighs, "are 
what Michael Cerveris calls 'follically impaired'".).



The wigs are everywhere, like so many souvenirs of a mass scalping, and Haugh 
delights in discussing both their intricacy and their expense. "There are 
ninety-one wigs and hairpieces in the show. Mostly all human hair. There are sixty 
wig changes and in the first act alone." Haugh smiles, "That always 
impresses people." 



Not too many years ago, Judith Haugh was a forty-something Connecticut house-wife 
and former beautician with three kids taking college courses in theatre, with 
vague ambitions of an acting career. "I had been doing wigs at Candlewood 
Playhouse," she tells me, "but it wasn't paying, and it was a big job. 
Five major musicals a summer, with only one hair person. You get paid two hundred 
dollars a show and it only ends up being about five cents an hour--which is about 
average for regional theatre. So I wasn't planning on going back." "But 
David Lawrence was doing costumes for the Candlewood the next summer. And he needed 
a hair person. He saw my name on the wall next to the payphone and left this charming 
message on my answering machine." (Asked to confirm this story, David Lawrence, 
who has since gone on to design the hair for Beauty and the Beast, recalls:"Scribbled 
among these phone numbers was: " For wigs, call Judith.' I just assumed it 
was free advertising.") "He was so charming over the phone, Haugh continues, 
"that I ended up telling him, "You sound like so much fun that I'll 
come and help you with La Cage aux Folles, and if I get paid I'll come 
back.' And we had such a good time that I stayed and worked the whole summer." 
"Eventually David asked me, 'Would you like to swing on Broadway?' Because 
he does major hair on Broadway. And I said, 'Sure!' And then she sort of forgot 
about me." "I was going away (from the Heidi Chronicles) to 
do another project." Lawrence relates, "and the girl that we'd hired 
wasn't tall enough to reach Joan Allen's head in this quick change that happened 
in full sight of the audience, during a blackout." "So he called me 
up," Haugh says, "and I did Heidi Chronicles for about nine 
days, and then went back to college. Then David called me up the next semester 
and said: 'Quit'. I actually had a year left of school. And I never did graduate. 
That's how I started working on Broadway--I replaced him on the The Heidi Chronicles." 
Although Haugh was not a fan of The Who or Tommy when the original album 
was released in the '60s ( "I was too busy having babies," she points 
out), working on the show with its young cast has turned out to be the ideal job 
for her. 



"Because I was a mom for so many years, and being a Libra, I'm good at negotiating. 
I'm good at listening. Actors are people whose emotions are very close to the 
surface, and they need to be able to dredge these emotions up really quickly. 
Tears, laughter, whatever. These people are told 'no' all the time, rejected all 
the time, and it's nice for them to come into a place where they're made to feel 
welcome. And that's what I always try to do."



According to David Lawrence, "One of the reasons why I wanted Judith to do 
(Tommy) was because she's really great with people. For a lot of the 
kids it was their first Broadway show, and they needed somebody they were comfortable 
with." 



Tommy isn't Laura Dean's first Broadway show, but she has special reasons 
for being glad that Judith Haugh is a member of the company. A real-life mom herself, 
Dean replaced the Tony-nominated Marcia Mitzman in the role of Tommy's mom, Mrs. 
Walker. "The first thing Judith noticed about me when I walked in the room 
was my hair, " Dean remembers. " I have very large curly hair, and she 
went: 'How are we gonna fit that under your wigs?' We tried pin curling and it 
didn't work-it looked I had a head full of hockey pucks--so they decided to wrap 
up my hair, which was something new to Judith. But now she's an expert wrapper. 
It takes her about twenty minutes to do my hair every night, and I love those 
twenty minutes. She knows the minute I walk in the room the mood I'm in. Which 
is really amazing --because sometimes if something's happened that's hurt me during 
the day and I'm trying to keep it under wraps because I just can't get into it, 
she looks at my face and say's "what's wrong?' I just love Judith. She's 
really become a good friend." 



Haugh points out, however, that being supportive can only go so far, even with 
a very young cast. "I refuse to be their mother--or their therapist. I've 
done that in the past, and it's felt like the marrow's being sucked out of my 
bones. You can get too involved. And you aren't their therapistl so you're not 
going to be able to fix whatever's wrong. I just try to be a friend." "My 
soul didn't need to act," Haugh admits gratefully of her decision to stay 
behind the scenes, and give up a possible acting career. "I get my creativity 
for my soul in what I do here. I am so happy being backstage and being a support 
system." Haugh's marriage, however didn't survive the inevitable strains 
endemic to a theatrical couple--and there can be drawbacks to being a single gal 
working on a Broadway show. "You never meet anybody," she states flatly. 
" I don't really date much at all. When I was on tour, and going from city 
to city, I would meet different stage hands, and they would ask me out. Thirty-five 
year old men seem to find me attractive. I'd say "Does your wife know that 
you've asked me out? Could I have a note from her please?'" 



But all in all, for a self-described " little Connecticut housewife with 
an interest in theater and an interest in hair who managed to put the two careers 
together, " this is the golden age of Judith Haugh. David Lawrence, for one, 
is glad that she's content to be the unofficial den mother of the Tommy cast:" 
As far as I'm concerned, if she's happy there, I'm happy with her there. That 
would be fine with me--if she stayed on until the day it closed. Judith is one 
of the unsung heroines of the backstage world.



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