LOS ANGELES (Top40 Charts/ Ghostlight Records) - Collector's Edition Double-CD of 'Reefer Madness' Includes Both the Movie
Soundtrack and Original Los Angeles Cast Recording.
Featuring Alan Cumming, Kristen Bell, Ana Gasteyer and more, Soundtrack Now Available in Stores, on Ghostlight Site, and Everywhere Music is Sold.
Ghostlight Records is proud to announce the October 27th release of a Collector's Edition double-CD of 'Reefer Madness', featuring both the Movie Soundtrack, and the original Los Angeles Cast Recording. The double-CD contains new Author Notes, written by Kevin Murphy & Dan Studney, and also features a 'flipover booklet', which contains artwork and lyrics for both CDs. Murphy & Studney commented: "This double CD of 'Reefer Madness' marks the culmination of a 10 year journey for us. It began in 1997, during a road trip back from San Francisco, where we got the idea that it might be fun to write a musical about singing, dancing potheads. Being in San Francisco can give you ideas like that."
The double CD is now available in stores, at https://www.sh-k-boom.com/ReeferMadness.shtml, and everywhere CDs are sold.
The casts of the LA production and the screen adaptation are impressive, and include Kristen Bell, Christian Campbell, Neve Campbell, Alan Cumming, Ana Gasteyer, Steven Weber and many other fine performers.
On October 27th, many of the cast members were on hand for a special late-night CD release concert at Joe's Pub in NYC, including: Christian Campbell, Alan Cumming, Ana Gasteyer, Amy Spanger, John Kassir and Robert Torti.
Ghostlight has emerged as the standard bearer on the Broadway music scene. Their team is relentless in their efforts to promote the music of the most innovative new voices on the Broadway scene, and to preserve the music of past productions. Ghostlight's recent releases of the OCRs for Tony winners In The Heights and Passing Strange, as well as their single release featuring the winner of MTV's Legally Blonde The Musical competition, have brought the label acclaim for their innovative marketing techniques and their efforts to reach the next generation of Broadway music fans via iTunes, music videos and more. Coverage has ranged from Rolling Stone to USA TODAY to The New York Times, from Blender Magazine to Playbill to Billboard, from AP Radio to NY-1 TV, and much more. In November, they will proudly release a recording that literally captures a moment in time, the highly anticipated, landmark CD Patti LuPone at Les Mouches. Watch a recent MyBroadway.com interview with label founders Kurt Deutsch and Sherie Rene Scott here: https://www.mybroadway.com/pages/index/102
'REEFER MADNESS' Author's Notes
By Kevin Murphy & Dan Studney
This double CD of Reefer Madness marks the culmination of a 10 year journey for us. It began in 1997, during a road trip back from San Francisco, when we got the idea that it might be fun to write a musical about singing, dancing potheads. San Francisco can give you ideas like that. Before we'd even reached Los Angeles, we'd written music and lyrics for the first song ('Dead Old Man,' since cut from the show).
As we wrote the first draft, we steeped ourselves in research about all things marijuana. No, not that kind of research... actual research into the time period and the reasons why cannabis was first criminalized. We learned that the kind bud had been the target of a cynical and ruthlessly efficient fear-mongering campaign, courtesy of government and industry titans, including Andrew Mellon, Lamont DuPont and William Randolph Hearst. We learned the word 'marihuana' comes from Pancho Villa's fighting song, La Cucaracha, and that Villa's arch-enemy, famed yellow journalist Hearst, used his publishing empire to drag the word into the American lexicon to scare the Mexican-hating public into helping him criminalize the weed that threatened his vast timber and paper holdings. Little did we know that the Founding Fathers wrote a draft of the Declaration of Independence on Dutch hemp paper. And we were surprised to learn that Ronald Reagan once claimed that 'permanent brain damage is one of the inevitable results of the use of marijuana.' Now we knew.
Later that year and into the next, we held several readings of our new musical, culminating in a concert at the Hudson Theatre in Hollywood in December of 1998, directed by Andy Fickman and produced by ourselves, Andy, Stephanie Steele and Gary Blumsack (when you see Dead Old Man Productions, that would be the five of us together). Our concert cast included Christian Campbell, John Kassir, Robert Torti and Harry S. Murphy, all of whom later appeared in the film. The audience response from the three-night event convinced us we had something special on our hands, so we jumped into rehearsals at the top of the following year. This was the gestation period for our 'Reefer Family' which has grown exponentially over the years.
The 1999-2000 Hudson Backstage Theatre production was a smash success in Los Angeles, and swept the LA theatre awards that season (5 Ovation Awards, 7 Garland Awards and 8 L.A. Drama Critics Circle Awards) in just about every possible category, including Best Musical and Best Score. The press made hay over the fact that a 99-seat Equity Waiver show on a shoestring budget had upset big-ticket Broadway imports like Fosse and Cabaret. The show began to consistently sell out, people started attending performances dressed up like characters in the show, and we recorded an original cast album (re-issued in this package). The show soon attracted the interest of producer Verna Harrah and James L. Nederlander who bought the show for an Off-Broadway transfer, bringing along original cast members Christian Campbell, Erin Matthews, Robert Torti, Paul Nygro and John Kassir. In the spring of 2000, we closed the L.A. production at the height of its popularity to revise the show for Off-Broadway and reopened it for invited-only audiences later that summer to see a handful of new songs ('Lonely Pew,' 'Murder,' 'Tell 'Em the Truth'), a broadly revised second act and the work of our new choreographer, Paula Abdul. Nothing, it seemed, could stop the momentum of what we considered 'the Little Show That Could.' But then...
At that time, 499-seat Off-Broadway houses were scarce. We had to wait over a year for a theater to open up in New York. Every week, anxious members of our cast and crew would call looking for updates. We finally got the go-ahead to bring the show to New York when the Variety Arts Theater became available. Previews were to begin September 15, 2001. We were in tech rehearsals downtown below the 'demarcation line' following the awful events of 9-11. Suddenly, eleven Broadway shows were in danger of closing and we hadn't even started previews! To ask the theatre-going public at that unique time in our history to sit through a satirical musical that warns about the government stooge behind the podium who waves the flag, flaunts a special relationship with Jesus and tells people to do whatever he says or their children will die... well, we must have been out-of-our skulls high not to postpone the opening.
Despite the stellar cast (in which our original cast was augmented by such top-drawer talent as Greg Edelman, Michele Pawk, Jen Gambetese and Kristen Bell), the show opened to mixed reviews and minimal audience attendance, with the exception of a small army of NYU students who bought $10 rush tickets and started showing up every night. The show closed shortly after it had opened and the vastly new version of the score (which now included 'The Brownie Song') was never recorded. At least not officially, though we hear tell that there are bootlegs floating around...
As disappointing as this experience was, it energized us to write a screenplay for a film version. We'd received several movie adaptation inquiries while the show was a hit in LA, but we'd rejected all comers, because we were determined to make the movie our way, retaining director Andy Fickman and our stage cast. We figured the best way to show Hollywood what the movie could be was to put it up in front of them. Thus, in the summer of 2003, we were essentially back where we began... another big concert reading. We reunited the bulk of the original LA cast and pit band from the Los Angeles version (adding Kristen Bell as Mary) and presented a two-night event at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles. Among the invited audience members was Robert Greenblatt, then on his second day on the job as the brand new president of Showtime. He liked what he saw, picked up the phone, and before we knew it, we were prepping a Showtime original movie! We got to retain director Andy Fickman, a respectable sampling of our stage cast, and enjoyed unparalleled creative freedom.
In 2004, we shot the movie in Vancouver and recorded the orchestra and posted in Los Angeles. Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical was first seen by audiences in January 2005 as a 'Premiere Selection' at the Sundance Film Festival. Seeing it several times there with cheering audiences was some of the most fun we've ever had in our lives. In April, it premiered on Showtime, and in September - on 9-11 no less - we won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music & Lyrics. It later played at the Deauville Film festival, winning The Premiere Audience Jury Award.
But alas, no soundtrack was planned. As we began licensing stock/amateur productions through Rodgers & Hammerstein Theatricals, it bugged us that there was no official recording of the definitive score. We looked into releasing it ourselves. This led to a blizzard of legal and logistical nightmares, not the least of which was the disappearance of the original masters from the Showtime vaults. Lucky for us, the movie's sound designer Glenn Morgan, had bootlegged a personal copy of the original orchestra and vocal mixes. If it weren't for Glenn's foresight, the second half of this CD set you have here would not exist. And now, thanks to Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records, it can be distributed to you. For us, Reefer has been a habit-forming drug. At ten years and counting, we look forward to our next fix.
SPECIAL THANKS to Philip Von Alvensleben and Apolloscreen
And an extra special shout out to Robert Greenblatt, our fifth Beatle. Without your faith, inspiration, good taste and obsessive commitment to quality, our little 99-seat black box stage musical would never have made it to the screen. Bob, you are 'The Stuff.'
Ghostlight is a label created by and for the Broadway community. They are committed to bringing the music of the 'New Broadway' to a contemporary audience, using modern technology, innovative marketing and artist involvement. Utilizing music videos, digital downloads and other aggressive strategies new to the Broadway arena, Ghostlight continues to be on the vanguard of interacting with the next generation of Broadway music consumers. The label and its artists continue to generate significant attention. President Kurt Deutsch was interviewed by PLAYBILL, regarding the label's embrace of 'Broadway's Digital Age': https://www.playbill.com/features/article/118331.html
