Seacoast Repertory Theatre to Present REEFER MADNESS this Summer

Reefer Madness: The Musical, a song-and-dance-and-zombies parody of the 1930s anti-marijuana propaganda film, moves this summer from the theater world's fringes to the Seacoast Repertory Theatre's main stage.

The musical opening June 24 promises to be the Seacoast Rep's spectacle of the season, with cascades of fake blood and a front-row splash zone, dancing zombies, confetti, flashing lights and circus performers among the cast.

"The musical is utterly ridiculous. It is satire; it is over the top, outrageous," said Brandon James, the production's co-director with Ben Hart, his partner from last year's Seacoast blockbuster, Avenue Q.

"It's production number after production number. You've got Jesus in one scene and zombies the next. You've got swing-jazz and rock music. You've got country and bluegrass," James said. "It takes everything that everyone has loved about anything culturally and musically in the last 100 years and it gives you a best-of the things that we all love. "

The musical, like the movie that inspired it, has typically played at midnight showings or fringe venues to audiences in on the joke, James said. But with rising public acceptance of marijuana - New Hampshire opened its first medical marijuana dispensary in April - the production is ready for a main-stage run.

"It's not something that a lot of companies can give a full budget or a main-stage treatment to. For most communities it's not going to translate into ticket sales," James said. "Portsmouth is an exception to that. We really feel that Reefer will do well for this community, and so we're giving it a main-stage treatment."

"The show is about a wholesome young kid who loses his mind to marijuana, but really the show is about government propaganda and scare tactics and fear. More than that, it's just a really good show," he said.

Reefer Madness: The Musical tells the story of a wholesome teenage couple, Jimmy Harper and Mary Lane, and of Jimmy's marijuana-fueled descent into depravity. Murder, sexual transgression, cannibalism and hallucinatory zombies mark the lurid world of the "Reefer Den" that ensnares Jimmy.

Reefer Madness the movie was produced in 1936 by a religious group. It was intended as a wake-up call amidst a national drive to outlaw marijuana. Roots of the movement included popular opposition to a wave of Mexican immigration, and it was led by the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who linked marijuana to imagined harms including sexual mixing of the races.

The movie was acquired shortly after its completion by a producer of exploitation films who supplemented it with salacious scenes. It was revived in the 1970s as a campy fundraiser for marijuana legalization, and has endured as a cult favorite.

Reefer Madness the Musical adopts the cult audience's absurdist perspective and cranks the dial up to 11.

"We're going for extravaganza," Hart said.

"There's puppets; there's over-the-top costumes; it's a very large stage," Hart said of the show's design. "But thing that we wanted to nail most in this production was the zombie makeup. There's this story line of how reefer turns you into zombies. We wanted to have the most top-notch, Walking Dead-level zombie prosthetics that we could have."

The show is chock-full of big dance numbers, ranging in style from tap and jazz to ballet. "We also went out of our way to hire an aerial dancer," Hart said.

There are hundreds of costumes, made possible by the Seacoast Rep's acquisition this year of the Mary's Closet costume stockpile in Manchester. "Each actor in the show plays at least eight different characters if not more. The show has the most challenging costume changes I've ever seen in a production," Hart said.

The Seacoast Rep and the directors of Reefer Madness are mindful of the epidemic of opioid addiction ravaging New Hampshire - and the Seacoast Rep has tackled that issue head on with its Stories of Addiction event in May and continued efforts. Part of funds collected throughout the run of the show will be donated to opioid recovery centers.

But one aim of Reefer Madness: The Musical is to puncture the 1930s propaganda message conflating marijuana with hard drugs, James said. "The fact that we all feel the way we do today about marijuana, that we hold it anywhere near other narcotics, is what this show is all about: How that came to be, and how ridiculous (it is)."

Among special features for this show, the Seacoast Rep has removed two rows of seats, to be replaced by old sofas and mattresses in a "a VIP stoner section," where play-goers will get a bucket of munchies, ponchos for the fake blood, and treats served up from the stage.

For two weekends in July, audiences will have an opportunity enjoy a double-feature. The Seacoast Rep is reviving its midnight stagings of Rocky Horror Show, the musical that inspired the cult movie, with cast members from as Reefer Madness: The Musical.

"It's really cool to be able to present these in tandem as a double feature," James said. "There's direct parallels every step of the way."

Reefer Madness: The Musical runs June 24 through July 24. Show times are Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.. Rocky Horror Show runs July 15,16, 22 and 23 at 11:59 p.m. each night.

Tickets are available through the Seacoast Rep box office at 603-433-4472, or online at www.seacoastrep.org/tickets. For student discounts, call the box office. The 2016 Seacoast Repertory Theatre's Season is sponsored in part by Bondgarden Farms, Portsmouth Public Media, MacEdge and Mesh Agency. Seacoast Rep is a drug and smoke free facility.

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