Reefer Madness (musical) - Evolution

Evolution

In 1998, writing partners Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney, who had met while studying at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, were driving from Oakland to Los Angeles and listening to Frank Zappa's "Joe's Garage", when they began discussing how one might stage the piece. "So I started picturing it in my head," Studney recalls. "Frank Zappa's concept of a musical and then it just hit me. I turned to Kevin and said 'What about doing Reefer Madness as a musical?'" By the time duo reached Los Angeles, they had already written the first song.

Upon completion of the script, they approached award-winning director Andy Fickman, who accepted the project with great enthusiasm. "I was a big fan of the original movie, it always made me laugh," Fickman explains. "Then I listened to Dan and Kevin warbling away on the demo track, which didn't made me laugh, it made me cry. But the music was great and I thought, 'God, if real singers were singing that.' And then when I read the script, I fell in love with it."

The play opened in a small equity waiver theater in Los Angeles for what the producers thought might be a two-week run. Instead it played to packed houses for over a year and a half, captivating audiences and critics alike, winning 20 theater awards and breaking records. Many devoted fans came back time and again, dressed in costumes and shouting out the lines.

Near the end of the original Los Angeles run, a number of major changes to the show were made:

• Mary's ballad, "Lonely Pew", was added to the first act.
• The Lecturer was given a bump-and-grind pole dance reprise of "Five and Dime".
• "The Trial" was deleted.
• Mary's dying moments triggered a sad reprise of "Romeo and Juliet" for the lovers.
• A long Act Two book scene in which Sally and Ralph are killed was musicalized into the up-tempo ensemble number "Murder!"
• The show's ending in which Jimmy is electrocuted and Mae jumps out a window when she is unable to save him, followed by a scene where all the dead characters recite ridiculous-but-real quotes was cut and replaced with the ending as described above.
• "The Orgy" was revamped with new choreography by Paula Abdul.

Soon afterward, the Los Angeles production shuttered in preparation for the move to Off-Broadway. At this point, Murphy and Studney made some additional changes to the text. Here are the major ones:

• "The Monkey Song", wherein a hallucinatory vision of Sally judges a boxing match between Jimmy and the literal monkey on his back, was replaced with "The Brownie Song".
• A solo counterpoint by Jack was added to the "Act One Finale" to heighten the tension at the first-act break.
• The Act Two opening "Jimmy on the Lam" was given a conceptual overhaul which added Ralph, Mae, and Sally as a jazz backup trio and set up "The Brownie Song".
• The muezzin duet in "The Orgy" was cut due to the lack of performers who could sing that high.
• The ending of the “Jesus (Reprise)” was changed to provide a better applause button.
• The Lecturer's pole dance number was cut in New York previews, due to the absence of a pole.

Kevin and Dan then adapted “Reefer” for the screen. Their screenplay made many changes to the plot and the score. Adjustments to the score included:

• Lyric revisions in existing songs “Five & Dime,” “Orgy,” “Murder” and “Tell ‘Em the Truth”.
• The Five & Dime’s Mr. Poppy was given a sex change and became Miss Poppy to create a role for Neve Campbell.
• The muezzin duet returned to “The Orgy.”
• “Dead Old Man” was replaced with “Mary Jane/Mary Lane.” This was done because Kevin & Dan felt the former was a visually static solo. That kind of number works better on stage than on film. They thought “MJ/ML” would be more visually interesting.
• “Act One Finale” and “Jimmy On the Lam” were deleted because there is no need to build to an act break and reset the action after intermission in the continuous medium of film.
• The reprise of “Listen to Jesus” was deleted (to keep things moving along).
• In the stage version, the reprise of “Reefer Madness” has different lyrics. In the movie, the end credit reprise of the title song has a different arrangement, but uses the same lyrics as the version that appears earlier in the film.

After the movie was released, Dan and Kevin proved unable to resist the temptation to fiddle with the show one more time. Here are the major changes from the NYC stage version:

• Many plot and lyric revisions made for the movie were retroactively written into the stage show. These changes include Sally driving the car that kills the old man, a happy ending (of sorts) for Mae and Jimmy, Mary’s ascension to heaven, Ralph joining Jimmy for the church break-in scene, and the bonfire sequence.
• Mr. Poppy is once again all man, and played by the Lecturer.
• “Mary Jane/Mary Lane” now permanently replaces “Dead Old Man.”
• “Five and Dime (Reprise)” was reinstated.
• The final reprise of “Reefer Madness” was cut. “The Truth” now ends the show.