The Starr’s Mill High School Fine Arts Department is planning a frighteningly funny Halloween treat for the whole family, as it performs “The Addams Family” Broadway musical on Oct. 30 and Nov. 1 to 2.
The enormously popular Broadway musical, with story by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice and music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa, features an all-student cast and crew directed by SMHS drama teacher David Spearman.
The ghoulish Addams family, led by the elegantly gaunt Morticia (Camille Edwards) and her devoted husband Gomez (Jackson Mattox), is in turmoil. Their daughter Wednesday (Alexa Echevarria), now 18, finds herself falling in love—a sensation that is unsettling for both Wednesday and her family of endearing misfits. When the teen invites her new boyfriend, Lucas Beineke (Matthew Reindl), over with his “normal” family to get better acquainted with the Addams household, chaos naturally ensues.
From the moment Lucas arrives at the Addams mansion with his parents Mal (Mark Bost) and Alice (Hollyn Shadinger), tensions begin to mount. Mal wants to tear down the old house, Alice begins to spout happy poems at random, Pugsley Addams (Turner Hasty), Uncle Fester (Davis Murphy) and Grandma Addams (Abigail Feltner) all fail at acting normal, and Wednesday, after wearing black for 18 years, appears in a bright yellow dress, as she prepares to tell her family that she intends to marry Lucas.
All of this makes for an unusually revelatory and comedic dinner, during which the hosts and guests play a game of confessions that ends with Uncle Fester soliciting the help of the Addams family ancestors to create a terrible storm that forces everyone to remain at the mansion for the night. This forced togetherness brings the story to its comedic climax—a situation that will change both families forever as they realize just how similar they are in dealing with the universal issues of love, dreams, marriage and parenthood.
The ancestor ensemble includes SMHS students Auren Arevalo, Christian Harms, Justin Duhon, Cara Clements, Jo Dearman, Ginni Gray, Anna Hall, Matt Corrigan, Alyssa Olvera, Nora Bill, Caroline Poole, Olivia Perry, Sydney Johnson, Madison Hagan, Alyssa Falla, Dominique Dawson, Megan Steele, Danielle Johnson and Drew VanDeMotter.
Performances, held in Starr’s Mill High School’s Duke Auditorium, are scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 30, and Saturday, Nov. 1, both at 7 p.m., and Sunday, Nov. 2, at 2:30 p.m. Tickets, which go on sale Oct. 6, cost $12 for adults and $8 for students.
For more information, contact Starr’s Mill High School at 770-486-2710.
