The Knack, the play that opened at the New Theatre, and later appeared in the touring company along with Rado. During the show's Chicago run at the Harper Theater, Rado and Ragni tried to revive Hang Down Your Head and Die with what they could remember from the script. They also planned to introduce new material in collaboration with Corky Siegel and Jim Schwall, of the Siegel-Schwall Band, whom they met playing in a beatnik coffee house off the Harper Street strip. They spent time writing ideas for the production, which was to be performed by Rado, Ragni, Schwall, and Siegel in a house on the South Side of Chicago and an apartment on Stony Island Avenue. Rado and Ragni rented the Harper Theatre to put on the production. After two weeks of working on the production, The Knack company went back to New York and Ragni and Rado had to abandon their plans to revive Hang Down Your Head and Die with Siegel and Schwall. Hair Ragni had been involved with The Open Theater since it was begun as part of the Living Theatre in 1962. In 1966, Open Theatre began rehearsals for the Megan Terry play Viet Rock. Ragni took a leading role in the show, which opened at the Martinique Theatre in New York and had a successful run. Viet Rock and experimental theatre inspired Ragni to work with Rado on a musical about hippie culture. As research, they associated with a group of youths in the East Village who were dropping out and dodging the draft. They talked to people in the streets and people they knew, and read articles about hippie culture and youths being kicked out of school for growing their hair long. They wrote lyrics to thirteen songs ("Ain't Got No", "I Got Life", "Reading and Writing", "Don't Put It Down", "Sodomy", "Colored Spade", "Manchester, England", "Frank Mills", "We Look at One Another", "Hair", "Aquarius", "Easy to Be Hard", "Good Morning Starshine" and "Where Do I Go?"), and completed the first version of their musical, called Hair. Two of the thirteen songs were removed, many songs were revised, titles were changed, and more songs were written as they continued to work on the show. Once they had a complete draft of the musical that they liked, Ragni and Rado brought the show to producer Nat Shapiro for consideration. He responded to the songs