Women cry for it, men die for it, and the audience goes wild for it in Wisteria Theater Company’s wickedly entertaining take on Reefer Madness The Musical, Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney’s tuneful stage adaptation of what is surely one of the worst movies ever made.

 The Z-movie in question is 1936’s Tell Your Children, also known as Dope Addict, Doped Youth, Love Madness, and most infamously as Reefer Madness, the tragic (and purportedly fact-based) tale of innocent teens driven to murder and madness, with a hit-and-run accident thrown in for good measure.

 From this godawful trainwreck of a cult classic, composer Studney and book writer/lyricist Murphy put tongue firmly in cheek to concoct Reefer Madness The Musical, whose narrator, aka The Lecturer (Connor Tyler Gray), warns us from the get-go to Beware The Demon Weed before introducing us to two of its most tragic victims, teen sweethearts Mary Lane (Darcy Rose Byrnes) and Jimmy Harper (Christopher Gutierrez), along with the equally evil perpetrators of the woe that befalls them, Reefer Den hostess/hooker Mae (Morgan Meadows) and her drug-pusher/pimp boyfriend Jack (Gray).

Also figuring in the couple’s downfall are psychotic college dropout Ralph (Trae Adair) and reefer-addicted blonde bimbo/single mother Sally (Joelle Tshudy), with Trevor Alkazian and Shantilly rounding out the cast as assorted drug den denizens and more.

 No matter how unwatchable its source material may be, Reefer Madness The Musical turns out to be precisely the opposite thanks to its drug-fiendishly clever book, one catchy tune after another (I defy you not to exit the theater with at least a couple of its songs playing on repeat in your head), Tyler Angier’s impressively inventive direction and animated video backdrops (virtually the entire production is rendered in glorious black-and-white including costume designer Tanya Cyr’s fabulous 1930s looks), Madison Mi Hwa Oliver’s jitterbug-meets-Broadway choreography, and some of the most fabulously deliberately over-the-top performances in town.

 Reprising the role she originated in the 2024 Los Angeles revival, Byrnes is girl-next-door-goes-wild perfection as the soon-to-be not virginal Mary Lane, dynamic newcomer Gutierrez’s squeaky-clean Jimmy goes berserk like nobody’s business, redheaded stunner Meadows chews the scenery quite scrumdiddlyumptiously as Mae, Tshudy is a bimbolicious delight as Sally, Adair is a trippy treat as the weed-crazed Ralph, and Alkazian and Shantilly multitask to maniacally mirthful effect in one wacky cameo after another.

 Most scene-stealing of all is indefatigable dynamo Gray, whether pontificating on the evils of “marihuana” as The Lecturer, or leading innocents down the road to destruction as Ralph, or giving Vegas headliners a run for their casino chips as none other than Jesus Christ Superstar himself.

 Music director Nolan Monsibay has the entire cast vocalizing to pitch-perfect effect as Josh Collins’s sound design provides a spot-on mix of amped vocals and prerecorded musical tracks.

 Josh Collins’s lighting design still needed some fine-tuning on opening night, but not Mitchell Lam Hau’s gut-punching (sorry, make that side-splitting) fight (and slap) choreography.

 Reefer Madness is produced by Lexi Collins and Renee Wylder, the latter of whom makes several amusing cameo appearances as Placard Girl. Meadows is intimacy coordinator.

Reefer Madness is hardly the only cult movie to be redeemed as a musical. (Xanadu and Little Shop Of Horrors come immediately to mind.) But neither of those started off as something so truly awful as Reefer Madness, making it all the more miraculous how entirely entertaining its musical adaptation is.

 That it starts off Wisteria Theater Company’s sophomore season with a bang-up bang is icing on the reefer brownie.

Wisteria Theater, 7061 Vineland Ave, North Hollywood.
www.wisteriatheater.com

–Steven Stanley
April 10, 2026

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Tags: Dan Studney, Kevin Murphy, Los Angeles Theater Review, Wisteria Theater Company