Musical 'Reefer Madness' a high time

In 1936, the ridiculously overwrought film "Tell Your Children" - about nice all-Americans who become crazy at the merest whiff of pot - began its path to cult-filmdom under one of its new names, "Reefer Madness." It now continues, with song and dance, in a rollicking theatrical head-trip on the Shakespeare Theatre Festival stage in Center City.

There, a handsome cast wrings every bit of exaggerated madness from "Reefer Madness, the Musical" - especially from its many production numbers. The production ran at Montgomery Theater in Souderton before moving to Center City. Here's an excerpt from Howard Shapiro's review, which appeared Sept. 16.

Director Megan Nicole O'Brien creates a contact high without so much as a real toke, as characters take cartoon puffs from chair-leg-length stage reefers, or find themselves face to face with Jesus, or dance through foggy hazes to Samuel Antonio Reyes' joyous choreography.

Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney's 2001 score makes it close to a one-tune show, but the music is catchy, and the characters get spotlights - enough for each main cast member to bogart the joint production by Montgomery Theater and the 11th Hour Theatre Company.

The musical is set in a high school gym, where the lecturer (Steve Pacek, wonderfully full of finger-pointing) leads a drama troupe in the tale of sweet Jimmy Harper and Mary Lane, who end up stained, and worse, by grass.

Noah Mazaika and Laura Giknis are adorable as the kids who fail to despair; Jennie Eisenhower and Joe O'Brien portray good-cop/bad-cop smoke-den operators. Add a cool ensemble and five-piece band, and you're a real square if you can't get a buzz.

A joint production of 11th Hour Theatre Company and Montgomery Theater through Nov. 2 at the Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival Theater, 2111 Sansom St. Tickets: $20-$25. Information: 267-987-9865 or

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