Beacon actors working on returning show to stage
In 2001, after Reefer Madness: The Musical had run for nearly two years in Los Angeles, its actors and backers built up big expectations for the show’s off-Broadway premiere. Then, four days before curtain, 9/11 happened.
“All of a sudden, a comedy about questioning and criticizing authority lost its vibe,” recalls Christian Campbell, who created the lead role of Jimmy Harper on stage and later screen.
Now, with recreational marijuana legal in many parts of the country (including New York) and lampooning business and government figures a staple of the entertainment world, Campbell is part of a production group eyeing a revival.
“We have horses running in New York and London and look to line up investors,” he says. “This is the most relevant show out there, by far. It’s based on a kitschy film, but it’s really about misinformation and propaganda.”
Campbell and his sister, Neve Campbell, are third-generation actors. He’s married to actor America Olivo, who is also helping to revive the musical, along with actors Alan Cumming and Kristen Bell, director Andy Fickman and Dan Studney, who wrote the book and music.
The song-and-dance version of Reefer Madness, originally a campy, preachy 1936 film about the dangers of cannabis that developed a cult following, opened in 1998 in Los Angeles. Its ill-fated New York run in 2001 lasted only a few weeks. Four years later, Showtime aired Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, also starring Campbell.
In 2014, the movie cast reunited to support the BabyQuest Foundation, a nonprofit that helps couples with fertility treatments. Campbell and Olivo had difficulty conceiving a child, but five years ago a “miracle baby” arrived.
The couple, who got engaged two weeks after meeting, moved north from Hell’s Kitchen on a whim in 2016. “We kept hearing about Beacon at parties and planned to visit Dia,” Campbell says. “Four hours after arriving, we put an offer on the place. So far, we’ve done well with our eye-blink decisions.”
Taking advantage of the shift in current events and the 25th anniversary of the initial play’s awards, a new cast in 2024 revived Reefer Madness: The Musical in Los Angeles, where it ran for four months. A soundtrack album was released on Jan. 10 (see reefermadness.com).
For the moment, Campbell has paused his thespian career, which included most recently the lead in Beacon resident Jeremy Schonfeld’s The Father Who Stayed and a year on his mother Marnie Neve’s favorite soap opera, All My Children, as the fourth incarnation of Bobby Womack.
“We laugh at the fact that a character can disappear for a long time without explanation and just come back as a completely new person who doesn’t even resemble the actor that previously played the part,” he says. “My guy had blond hair and blue eyes and one day he went up into the attic to get some ski equipment and never came down. Years later, he magically reappears — as me.”
Acting on a soap opera, he says, is “one of the hardest gigs there is — I gained new respect for the craft. You have to turn water into some form of wine. It may taste like Manischewitz in the end, but at least it’s better than before.”
