Local community performing arts venue the Sullivan Theater is inviting the whole family to enjoy a heartwarming musical rendition of “The Addams Family.”
The creepy, kooky and altogether ooky Addamses have been popular characters since their original New Yorker comic strips started in 1938. They further cemented themselves as cultural icons when they graced the silver screen in 1964 with their first-ever TV adaptation.
Throughout the decades since, the macabre family has been subject to reimaginings and adaptations into film, animation and books. In 2010, they made their stage debut with “The Addams Family” musical.
In this musical story, the eccentric and dark Addamses are confronted with a taste of normal life when Wednesday Addams brings her fiance, Lucas Beineke, and his family to dinner. Wednesday begs her father, Gomez Addams, to keep it a secret from family matriarch, Morticia Addams, for fear of her mother’s disapproval of her fiance’s normal Ohioan parents and lifestyle.
Through all of these warring personalities and miscommunications, many high jinks and chaotic musical numbers ensue. Despite all of this conflict, director Matt Miyagi said that the driving force behind this show is love and its power to bring people back together.
“Wednesday and Lucas are so different from each other and come from so many different worlds,” said Miyagi. “They both fully embrace each other’s worlds in a really wonderful and fantastic way, and their love does conquer it all.”
Tyler Brian, the actor playing Lucas, expressed a similar sentiment.
“It really helps emphasize how complex and unique love can be to different people, and that different people accept love and see love in different lights,” Brian said. “There’s no specific definition of love or that connection that you feel with someone.”
Brian is in a special position for his community theater debut, as he is playing an all-new character to the franchise with a lot less history to draw from.
The community theater process has been much more efficient than high school theater, with a lot going on at once for Brian. In his high school career, he mostly worked with peers his age, so the culture shock of how this new world operates was something to get used to.
“There’s people who are as young as 12 or 14 and people who are all the way up in their 60s. It’s very different because you’re seeing these people who come from all walks of life — from all different ages,” he said. “I’ve come to cherish the uniqueness in community theater compared to my high school theater.”
Unique is a word that comes up in discussion with “The Addams Family.” A theme the crew speaks on a lot is how the family challenges ideas of normality while also trying to reconcile with a more standard life.
Michelle Willis, the actress playing Wednesday, finds that her own challenge coming into this role was making both Wednesday’s stoic nature and passionate feelings work in tandem. Not only that, but Willis finds the overall story deeply personal and important.
“I love how she is coming to terms with people’s perceptions of her choices and trying to appeal to her family, because she is an Addams first and foremost,” Willis said, “but she also has Lucas on the side, who she loves and adores.”
Everyone can find something to love in of “The Addams Family,” whether it be the Tim Burton-esque aesthetics, the powerful and hectic musical numbers or messages both broad and individual.
Miyagi wanted to emphasize that connection to the story’s acceptance of what is deemed abnormal.
There is a stark juxtaposition for both the Addamses and Beinekes of what normal is defined as, showing how relative that term truly is. Growing up as a gay man, Miyagi found a strong bond with this breaking down of what is normal and he hopes the audience will too.
“Normal is overrated,” Miyagi said. “Seeing a family that was so accepting of what’s, quote-unquote, ‘not normal’ was a really big thing for me.”
For updates on showtimes and where to buy tickets, visit the Sullivan Theater Instagram and website.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source lsureveille.com ’
