The Dell’Arte Company in

“Mary Jane: The Musical”

MARIJUANA: the economic engine of Humboldt County, Dell’Arte’s home in “The Emerald Triangle.”

What began as a back-to-the-land movement out of the wreckage of the Summer of Love has become the largest cash crop in California!

A spiritual movement becomes a prohibition-style enterprise!

Healing or harmful? A community scourge or a community salvation??

From medical marijuana to the impact of growhouses on neighborhoods,
the debate around the legalization of marijuana rages on.
Whole new economic classes have emerged.
Cultural divides have widened as a result.
In the new landscape of our lives will “Purple Kush” become the new Zinfandel??

Out of this milieu DAI has envisioned a true theatre -of-place production:  “Mary Jane: The Musical.” “MJM” is a unique musical event, part concert, part show. With songs commissioned from over a dozen songwriters, “MJM” reflects the broad spectrum of our community’s attitudes, beliefs, fears, hopes and dreams about the herb. 

Sung in concert style by a cast of fourteen singers, actors and musicians, the evening is led by DAI’s founding artistic director Joan Schirle as first-generation grower, Mary Jane.   “MJM” promises to reflect the good, the bad, the funny and the sad, in new original songs born of our local marijuana culture. Whether you think MaryJane's an industrial pollutant or a magical mystery, there’ll be a song for you!

Theatre of Place is about where you live, for and with the people where you live, in work that goes deep into the landscape of place and people. Pioneers in Theatre of Place, DAI once again steps to the forefront of a burning local issue (no pun intended!).  Our goal is “to hold as ‘twere the mirror up to nature” (Hamlet, Act 3) and thus give us all the chance to laugh and learn together.

Please help us do this today by becoming a member of the Dell’Arte 215 Club. And get your tickets to the Mad River Festival-- for a fabulous concert evening with great music, characters, and songs, directed by Michael Fields, musical arrangments by Tim Randles.

Original songs from Lila Nelson, Joyce Hough, Fred Neighbor, Joani Rose, Tim Randles, Jeff DeMark, Joan Schirle and many others!