Blog 1 : Reefer Madness! The ‘hit’ Musical

Based on the original cult film of the same name, the musical Reefer Madness is, in one word, insane. The 1936 original has been dubbed by the American TV channel AMC as ‘one of the worst movies ever made’ – but don’t let this fool you into thinking that this makes it a bad musical too! Due to its cult following a spoof musical was made in 1998, with a film adaptation in 2005. ‘Reefer Madness! The Musical’ doesn’t simply satirise the misinformed nature of the original movie about the dangers of marijuana but also begins to satirise the musical genre itself!

With the history lesson over, it’s time to really prepare you for the show:

Explaining the ups and downs and left and rights of the show has two issues, it may ruin the performance for you and, due to the nature of the show, it also may be simply way too difficult to write! Consequently, I turn the well-known saying: words are subjective but equations are not. Utilising the simple tools of a calculator, a laptop and a bit of chaos theory I have successfully and scientifically broken down the performance.

However, an audience does not simply want a ‘good’ show and therefore it is important as a cast and team that we excite and amaze. As these emotions are a lot harder to measure, there are sadly no appropriate equations and thus we are left to have to settle for graphs and statistics. As you can see below, much like a healthy diet, a great show also requires diversity in its emotional effect on its audience.

Now that we’ve clearly and scientifically proven that the show will be great, it’s important to understand the context in which 'Reefer Madness' will be performed: the Fringe.

The Fringe is a huge and amazing festival, comprising the best and the worst of all things weird and wonderful. It is often a misconception that wonderful is what sticks to a person’s heart and stays with them forever, wrong - weird, whacky, bonkers is the name of the game! If you can show an audience something that partially scars them, within the constraints of the law, then you’re onto a winner. Reefer Madness achieves this in the same way you once made that amazing Jungle Juice cocktail on holiday. You put everything in the cupboard into half a watermelon: tequila, apple juice, some oranges, old wine, Berocca, lemonade and of course a couple death-star-shaped vodka ice cubes. None of these ingredients would normally work together, but you put them in anyway because, well, why the hell not?! To this very day that night is stained into your memory as a truly mental night. Reefer Madness attempts to turn that cocktail into a musical! (And if that doesn’t entice you to come see it, I really don’t know what will!)

The script is mad, the rehearsals have been mad and I can only imagine the audience will go mad for it too.

Peace,

Carlos Sandin (Actor – Ralph Wiley/Goatman)

Aerospace Engineer Student

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