You might think that the current, celebrated, Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of “Hair” inspired MUSKET — the University of Michigan’s student-run musical theater company — to give the show a go. But you’d be wrong.

“I don’t even think I knew, when I went into the meeting room (to propose the show), that ‘Hair’ was scheduled to be on Broadway,” said director Torrey Wigfield, who fell in love with the show's eclectic rock score five years ago.

“I really like how Galt McDermot, the composer, was open to experimenting with all different types of funk, rock, country-western, jazz and … the foundations of hip-hop,” said Wigfield. “It’s just really cool that you can find all these styles in one extremely well-written rock score. That’s not happening with a lot of musicals these days.”

Focusing on a bohemian group of young friends living in New York City in the time of the Vietnam War, the show’s profanity — and its depiction/discussion of drug use and sexuality — raised eyebrows when it premiered in 1967. But the show has since become a kind of theatrical time capsule, capturing the era’s youthful hippie counterculture spirit.

And while the show’s book, by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, is pretty loose in its storytelling, it generally focuses one young man’s difficult choice to either dodge the draft or serve his country.

“When the show was written in ’67, people didn’t really know what was happening in Vietnam,” said Wigfield. “There is a tremendous amount of innocence written into the show. Claude gets his draft notice, and he doesn’t know what that entails.”

And although “Hair” has, since its premiere, become a period piece — wherein we know perfectly well what happens next — Wigfield still finds its story powerful.

“We don’t necessarily need to feel the impact of the Vietnam War impending,” he said. “What we need to feel is this sense of loss, insecurity, fear, awareness. I don’t necessarily think that you could set the show in another time and completely overlook Vietnam. But it’s a catalyst to get everything running. It’s a pretty integral part of the show.”

Wigfield and his design team have taken their cues from photos and footage from Woodstock, but there’s one hippie wardrobe standard you won’t see on stage: “I definitely tried to avoid the tie-dye,” said Wigfield. “I have really never found that appealing.”

“Hair”’s most notorious production legacy, though, involved on-stage nudity.

“When the show opened and had previews, that’s when three actors started taking off their clothes during ‘Where Do I Go?’, as (a gesture of) complete freedom,” Wigfield expained. “But it was never mandated by the directors. And it wasn’t actually until two years later, when the show started to tank because everybody had seen it, and everybody was over the whole onstage nudity bit, that producers began asking all the actors to take their clothes off. And when the actors said, ‘We want more money,’ (producers) hired strippers to come on during the end of act one.”

How has Wigfield dealt with this bit of “Hair” lore?

“I’ve said to the cast that I really can’t tell you to take your clothes off, and I won’t. I won’t force you to do anything that you don’t want to do,” Wigfield said. “But I have asked them to be open to the idea, and I’m very impressed with how far they’ve gotten in this rehearsal process with that so far.”

So if you want to see precisely how much sunshine Wigfield's cast is letting in — ahem — you’ll just have to catch the show for yourself.

PREVIEW “Hair” Who: MUSKET, U-M’s student-run musical theater group. What: Tony Award-winning musical that aimed to capture the passion and spirit of the hippies in New York City who rebelled against the Vietnam War. Where: Power Center, 121 Fletcher. When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 20-22 only. How much: $13 ($7 for students). Info: Advance tickets available by phone at 734-764-2538. For more info, visit the MUSKET web site

Jenn McKee is the entertainment digital journalist for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546, and follow her on Twitter @jennmckee.