University Theatres Mainstage season to present Reefer Madness: The Musical

Reefer Madness: The Musical, based on the over-the-top 1936 "educational" film that became a cult classic, will continue the University Theatres Mainstage season at 8 p.m., Friday, Nov. 13, in E.C. Mabie Theatre of the University of Iowa Theatre Building.

Additional performances of the production, directed by third-year Master of Fine Arts directing student Brandon Bruce, will be presented at 8 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 14, and Tuesday–Friday, Nov. 17–20, and at 2 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 15.

Tickets are $17 (seniors citizen $12; youth $10; and UI students $5 with a valid UI ID) and are available in advance from the Hancher Auditorium box office.

From writers of Weird Science, The Simpsons, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and Desperate Housewives—music by Dan Studney and lyrics by Kevin Murphy—this raucous musical comedy takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the hysteria caused when clean-cut kids fall prey to marijuana, leading them on a hysterical downward spiral filled with evil jazz music, sex, and violence.

In the 1936 film, initially funded and produced by an earnest church group as a message to parents about the addictive and soul-destroying nature of a new drug menace called marijuana, two upstanding teenage boys become hopelessly addicted to the drug after being seduced by a depraved drug peddler. One toke turns them from Jekyll to Hyde, creating uncontrollably violent and lustful monsters. Reefer Madness: The Musical adds the theatrical convention of a lecturer who has gathered local parents in a high school auditorium to present a play about the imminent danger of "the real public enemy number one."

The play follows teen Jimmy Harper who meets dope peddler Jack at the neighborhood Five and Dime and is lured away to the local reefer den and soon forgets about his innocent sweetheart, Mary Lane. The lecturer leads the audience through the Harper Affair, a tale of deceit, violence, lust, and murder, all caused by marijuana.

prepared by University Relations