The Mad Ones (formerly known as The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown) is an off-broadway musical made in 2017 by Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk, about a young woman as she explores her emotions, and grief. 

Plot

‘…the only ones for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles…” On the Road, 1957

   High school valedictorian Samantha Brown sits in her car, about to go off to college, where she thinks about her life, where the audience is shown flashbacks of it. We see her views on her relationships with her mother, Beverly, her boyfriend, Adam, and her best friend, Kelly Manning. Beverly is a statistician who has a fear of driving and car accidents, wanting her daughter to go to Harvard University. Adam is mostly just Sam’s ‘dumb’ boyfriend who doesn’t offer too much to the plot, besides his big number, Run Away With Me. Kelly, however, is probably the second most important character besides Sam. Before she tragically passed away from a car crash, she had wanted Sam to get her driver’s license so they could just drive away together like in Jack Kerouac’s book, On the Road. Reliving the flashbacks, she deals with the grief of Kelly’s death, and her relationships with the other three characters. 

Music

The music is absolutely phenomenal, one of the best musical soundtracks I’ve listened to, and my personal favorite songs are Miles to Go, The Mad Ones, and Run Away With Me.

Original Cast

Samantha Brown played by Krystina Alabado (Mean Girls, Evita)

Kelly Manning played by Emma Hunton (Rent, Next to Normal)

Adam played by Jay Armstrong Johnson (Newsies, Sweeney Todd, Phantom of the Opera)

Beverly Brown played by Leah Hocking (Billy Elliot, Mamma Mia!, Grease)

However, on the cast album, Adam’s singing parts are sung by Ben Fankhauser (Newsies), and Beverly’s are sung by Katie Thompson.

This show is a very underrated one, mostly because of how short it’s run was, but I rate this show an 8/10. The music, the characters, and the