Drug Use in Musicals

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Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 4:25pm

I am doing a project for school on drug use in recent musicals/plays and was wondering if anyone has any good suggestions of shows that would be relevant. I have already talked about Hair and N2N. Any help would be appreciated!

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 4:27pm

Mimi has a heroin problem in RENT.

"The price of love is loss, but still we pay; We love anyway."

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 4:30pm

Does it have to be a *major* problem in a show? I always thought the scene in Spring Awakening was interesting because Melchior "rolls Moritz a smoke" and then his mom walks in like a minute later, and doesn't notice a problem.

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 4:32pm

In the upcoming American Idiot, Johnny, a bored kid from the suburbs, moves to the city and is pursuaded by a Marilyn Manson type named St. Jimmy to take drugs, which initially gains him the admiration of a girl, but...

**SPOILER**

his heroin use spirals out of control until he threatens the girl and himself with a knife. She breaks up with him, and he discovers that St. Jimmy was just another facet of his personality, his dark side. He gives up drugs and gets a boring desk job.

Formerly SirNotAppearing - Joined 3/08

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 4:36pm

If HAIR is considered "recent", then you might as well talk about COMPANY (pot) MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (cocaine)and DROOD (opium).

Updated On: 2/15/10 at 04:36 PM

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 4:43pm

DRS: they are smoking tabacco, nothing more. It is not weed. It was totally acceptable for all to smoke tobacco. Everyone had to roll their own cigarettes.

To the OP:

BARE has quite a bit of drug use and underage drinking as well.

A Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neil deals with alcoholism and herion addiction.

Mystery of Edwin Drood has an Opium Den scene

That's all I"m coming up with on the Fly.....but there are many, many others.

If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it? These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 5:04pm

In The Life, one character has a cocaine addiction.

Taboo goes into great detail about Boy George's drug addiction.

Butters, go buy World of Warcraft, install it on your computer, and join the online sensation before we all murder you. --Cartman: South Park ATTENTION FANS: I will be played by James Barbour in the upcoming musical, "BroadwayWorld: The Musical."

Updated On: 2/15/10 at 05:04 PM

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 5:08pm

There's the joint in Jersey Boys.

And does the potion in Jekyll & Hyde count? Ha.

I'm sure there's something in The Who's Tommy, too, although I was so bewildered by what I saw I don't remember.

"This thread reads like a series of White House memos." — Mister Matt

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 5:11pm

Come Fly Away - sounds like a show that should include drug abuse. lol

#10

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 5:14pm

The Wild Party--both Lachiusa's and Lippa's--feature drug use heavily; the former musical has a song, "The Lights of Broadway," during which the character (Nadine) snorts coke intermittently while singing.

Kiss of the Spider Woman has several scenes that heavily feature morphine.

Passing Strange has several scenes involving drug use ("Arlington Hill," "Amsterdam," etc).

"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

#11

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 5:24pm

"There's the joint in Jersey Boys. "

That's not the only incidence of drug use in Jersey Boys. I'd mention it but if you haven't seen the show, it's a bit of a spoiler.

#12

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 5:27pm

In addition to the pot scene that's written in Company, there was also that 1996 Donmar production directed by Sam Mendes that had added cocaine use.

I believe it's in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28CkdFujKGM

A work of art is an invitation to love.

#13

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 5:30pm

I think there's a scene in 9 to 5 where they get high. There was a broadway.com article about a year ago listing five musicals with marijuana use. Look it up.

#14

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 5:34pm

In Andrew Lippa's "The Wild Party," Idina Menzel's character, Kate, snorted coke in the middle of her song, "Life of the Party."

#15

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 5:41pm

Reefer Madness?

#16

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 5:47pm

Sally did coke in the Cabaret revival.

#17

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 5:52pm

Bright Lights, Big City. I would assume from the plot summary.

Updated On: 2/15/10 at 05:52 PM

#18

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 6:20pm

Jimmy ODs in Dreamgirls, IIRC.

Jimmy, what are you doing here in the middle of the night? It's almost 9 PM!

#19

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 6:30pm

Basically all of the "truth" in Fame Becomes Me is about drugs.

#20

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 6:31pm

Basically all of the "truth" in Fame Becomes Me is about drugs.

#21

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 6:41pm

Mary Tyrone is addicted to morphine in Long Day's Journey into Night, NOT heroin.

#22

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 6:41pm

"Bright Lights, Big City. I would assume from the plot summary."

If it's even KINDA faithful to the novel, there is coke galore.

"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."

#23

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 6:42pm

Thanks for all the suggestions!

#24

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 11:16pm

Frankie's daughter in Jersey Boys dies of a Heroin overdose.

Let's not forget the scene in Wicked where Elphaba cooks meth in the dorm room.

#25

Drug Use in Musicals

Posted: 2/15/10 at 11:54pm

Most definitely Bright Lights, Big City

Lots of drugs

"This table, he is over one hundred years old. If I could, I would take an old gramophone needle and run it along the surface of the wood. To hear the music of the voices. All that was said." - Doug Wright, I Am My Own Wife

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