By Hedy Weiss
Sun-Times
10/30/08
Make way for Gomez, Morticia, Fester, Wednesday, Pugsley and all the rest. “The Addams Family” — a new musical inspired by cartoonist Charles Addams’ droll, goth-style, decidedly macabre version of the American family — is set for its pre-Broadway world premiere at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts/ Oriental Theatre, running Nov. 13, 2009-Jan. 10, 2010.
Already widely familiar from various television series, films and video games, the stage musical will instead feature a book (inspired largely by the cartoonist’s hundreds of drawings) by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (“Jersey Boys”) and a score by Andrew Lippa (“The Wild Party”). Direction and design will be by the British team of Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch (chosen for their “Shockheaded Peter” and Metropolitan Opera credits).
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Definitive casting will be announced in the coming months, but Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth already have been associated with an initial reading of the show, and it is hoped they will be on board for a January workshop.
The show will be produced by Chicago-based Elephant Eye Theatrical (Stuart Oken, Michael Leavitt and Five Cent Productions) and Roy Furman.
“This is a story about things common to all families, and various rites of passage,” Oken said. “We envision it as a classic Broadway musical comedy — literate and theatrical, with a score that has everything from hilarious but touching ballads, to Broadway vaudeville, to real love songs and relationship songs.”
