On April 30, the Friends of Miller Library and the WAC Dramalumni will host the 3rd Annual Jason Rubin American Musical Theatre Film Festival featuring Cabaret and Reefer Madness. The festival honors Rubin, a scholar of American musical theater and retired drama professor of 27 years, and celebrates the library’s Jason Rubin Musical Theater Collection. Before each showing, Rubin will give his remarks on the films.
Reefer Madness will begin at 3:30 p.m., and Cabaret at 7:00 p.m., in Tawes Theatre of the College’s Gibson Center for the Arts. There will be a reception in the lobby between screenings. Admission is free and members of the public are encouraged to attend.
Cabaret is a 1972 American musical film directed by Bob Fosse starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York, and Joel Grey. It centers on a German cabaret called the Kit Kat Club as the characters strive for sexual expression and freedom even as the Nazi Party rises to power in the background. With eight Oscars, it holds the record for a film not honored as Best Picture.
Reefer Madness is a 2005 movie musical that parodies a 1936 film of the same name. The original Reefer Madness is an anti-marijuana propaganda film that has become a cult classic for its melodramatic portrayal of the “drug-crazed abandon” caused by the “demon weed.” The 2005 musical version, starring Kristen Bell, Christian Campbell, and Alan Cumming, is an over-the-top musical parody involving a seductive reefer den, cannibalistic frat boys, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Jason Rubin, who lives in Baltimore, began his teaching career at Washington College in the spring of 1986. A professional set designer since 1970, he has designed sets for Theater of the First Amendment in Fairfax, Va., Totem Pole Playhouse in Fayetteville, Pa., and The Folger in Washington, D.C. He is a former artistic director of Children’s Theater Association in Baltimore and belongs to Actors’ Equity Association and the Theater Library Association. For 10 years he was a juror for the George Freedley Award. He has also taught at George Mason University and Loyola College in Baltimore.
Dramalumni and Friends brings together Washington College drama alumni, friends, faculty, staff, and students for thought-provoking discussion, dynamic events, and meaningful networking.
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