REEFER MADNESS! : THE MUSICAL
The 1930s, 2 young students, the outburst of Marijuana, Jesus Christ as a rock star, and a brilliant musical to tell all of this!
Successful
REEFER MADNESS! : THE MUSICAL
THE PROJECT
To put on stage Reefer Madness!, the Off-Broadway musical by Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney, in the Bierkeller Theatre in Bristol!
WHY?
To create a quality show and put in practice the skills learnt during my Masters in Performance Research at the University of Bristol.
To gather interested students and put their talents in action through a very funny, eccentric and mostly-unknown musical.
To bring singers, dancers, actors and musicians into an ambitious project, out of the traditional setting of student societies. It's a good taste of what a professional work is in this industry, with the different aspects of production, rehearsals, direction, budget management...
In the end, to have loads of fun in the process and achieve a 5 years old project!
THE SHOW
The story of Jimmy, a young and naive student, and his downfall into Marijuana, the new 'public enemy number 1'. He will take Mary with him, and they will both discover this new foe through hilarious musical scenes, meeting Jesus as a rock star, young zombies, space brownies, a seductive dealer, an almost femme-fatale, and a completely hooked mad man!
The main material for this project is the 2005 movie musical by Andy Fickman and screened at the Deauville Festival, which trailer you can watch here: Reefer Madness: the movie musical trailer
And now a few pictures from the movie to show you the iconic scenes of this musical:
Mary and Jimmy, the lovers.
Jesus Christ Superstar, back in Reefer Madness!
Mary, when she smokes pot...
'We are just like Romeo and Juliet!'
And more pictures from the rehearsals to follow!
THE PLACE
The Bierkeller Theatre is a well-known place in the city centre of Bristol, seating between 50 and 450 spectators. They often host student productions, amateurs and tours. It's dark and somewhat cavernous atmosphere, almost gothic, makes it an ideal location for the eccentricity and crazyness of Reefer Madness!
Check it on their website: http://www.bierkellertheatre.com/
THE DATES
Performances are on the 7th and 8th of May 2014!
FOR STARTERS
As a drama postgraduate student at the University of Bristol, I have free access to activity studios for auditions and rehearsals. I will also enjoy the help of our designer for costumes and props, so almost everything will be free of charges, to focus on the main expense point : rights!
40 DAYS
To support this project! Auditions will start mi-January, quickly followed by the first rehearsals, to stick to the 12 weeks loan of the libretto, music sheets and everything else described a bit further down.
Starting now, gathering a strong creative team, up until the deadline to finance the project and hopefully getting the money, send the cheque and wait for the necessary material, there's no time to lose!
MEDIA
Once the project is started, a French/English Facebook page will be created to keep you all posted on our progress!
Allocation of funds
Money makes the world..
Your donation will most entirely be used to pay for the rights of the musical!
The rights for Reefer Madness! are available at the Rodgers & Hammerstein Co. who, for this amateur production, quoted me with the following:
£95 performance fee for each performance, meaning £190 in total.
£230 for the rehearsal set (libretto vocal books, piano conductors) for 12 weeks.
£100 orchestral hire for 4 weeks.
£28 post and packing of above mentioned.
Which makes a total of about £550. Part of this will also be financed by me, from previous student jobs.
If per chance your generosity makes the total go higher than expected, all bonus will obviously be added to the overall budget, for costumes, props, make-up and techs!