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Cannabis is now legal in California and adults can grow up to six plants if they want. But the topic of cannabis cultivation is nothing new to Humboldt County. It was even the storyline for a local smash hit stage musical that turned into a film. This is Part II of Mary Jane from Stage to Screen.

Dell’Arte’s Producing Artistic Director, Michael Fields, was the mastermind behind the musical. He explains how he was inspired to write the show, which became the company’s highest grossing of all time. He also shares how both the play and film had a rocky start financially but managed to persevere.

The story is focused around Mary Jane, the epitome of a hippie, played by Dell’Arte’s Founding Artistic Director Joan Schirle. She represents a social movement; people coming to Humboldt in the ‘70s to escape city life, crime, and the effects of the Vietnam War. People who became Humboldt’s first generation growers. Schirle could relate to the character and truly embraced the role.

“It’s caused me to understand the history of the movement in our area, because I came here in ‘72 and some people I knew in Southern Humboldt were Mary Janes. So my experience of playing Mary Jane is both from the heart and from real life observations of friends,” she says.

Mary Jane grasps various aspects of the weed industry, it’s role in Humboldt’s economy, regulation and the many what-ifs revolving around legalization.

Fields says, “So it’s what happens to Humboldt County. You have the extraction economy. You have gold, people come in and take the gold, it goes away, you leave a wreck. Then lumber and now marijuana, where the small independent people get pushed away and those larger people come in and patented it, take it, have it.” 

So now it’s more relevant than ever. Howarth and Fields are currently discussing distribution of film with influential people in Los Angeles along with a possible DVD release.

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See Part I here: From Stage to Screen, the Stars of Mary Jane Tell All