Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Waterworks Theater combines the macabre with young love this Halloween month with an astoundingly polished and fun production of The Addams Family: A New Musical Comedy. Waterworks mainstay and fave Elijah Logue brilliantly directs the eerie revelry of an updated “kooky, spooky, and altogether ooky” Addams Family clan. Logue and his creative team deliver a visual and aural delight, raising the Waterworks performance bar for acting and song and dance, as well as costuming and set design. 

“Addams Family The Musical” (2009) was written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, whose previous Broadway collaboration was the Tony Award-winning “Jersey Boys,” which received the 2002 Tony award for Best Musical. The catchy music and lyrics for the Addams Family musical are by Tony and Grammy nominee Andrew Lippa.

As the play begins, 18-year-old Wednesday Addams has discovered the bliss of first love with Lucas, a normal human boy. Wednesday surprises her parents by inviting Lucas and his “normal” Ohio parents Mal and Alice Beineke to the Addams Family eerie mansion for dinner to meet her parents Gomez and Morticia, her brother Pugsley, Uncle Fester and Grandma, and butler Lurch. Also showing up (but unseen by the Beinekes) are many Addams ancestors who’ve been resurrected from the family crypt for this ghoulishly convivial occasion. Just wait until a conjured storm and after-dinner game of Full Disclosure make the evening even more bizarre by revealing secrets that show the Addams and Beineke families are more alike than different.

Mike Harris brings a decade of experience in musical theater to his first appearance on the Waterworks stage and puts all of it to use in his role as the suave, passionate, and proud Gomez Addams, the wealthy Castilian who loves, supports, but is often befuddled by his extended ghoulish family. Harris’s performance effortlessly channels iconic Gomez actors John Astin, Raul Julia, and Luis Guzmán.

Mary Tackett is delightful as the glamorous Morticia Addams, the sensible and subtly influential true head of the Addams household. As a vocalist in concert, chamber, and acapella groups, Tackett shines and even astounds in her dazzling first role at Waterworks.

Kolby Logue is truly superb as Wednesday Addams whose Goth sensibilities are roiled by saucy teenage hormones. Wednesday yearns to break free from Addams family traditions so she might love the normal midwestern boy her dark heart desires. Kolby, who has acted in Waterworks productions for eight years,  embraces with ease the wide-ranging emotional and physical demands of this role. 

Wednesday’s odd little brother Pugsley Addams is portrayed with deliciously mischievous zeal by Teagan McKinney. 

Uncle Fester, the narrator of the musical, is adorably played by Hampden-Sydney College theater student Thaddeus Cobb, who wonderfully captures Fester’s zany instability and passionate embrace of love for love’s sake.

Waterworks mainstay Christy Moore can immerse herself in any quirky character, and she delightfully puts her zany imprint upon Grandma Addams, a potions-toting witch who conjures sage advice out of befuddlement. 

Jordan Whiley perfectly embodies Lurch, the long-suffering Addams family butler. Whiley’s stoic bearing and subtle mannerisms are a treat to behold. 

Moving from one level of creepiness to another we have the Beineke Family. Reeves La Roche is amazing as harried and exasperated Mal Beineke, the conservative midwestern father and husband who is initially aghast at becoming related to the Addamses.

Maya Hoffman, a Longwood University sophomore, is marvelous as Mal’s wife Alice, a stereotypical suburban mom with an eccentric quirk of communicating with rhymes until a potion changes her into her truer self. Hoffman handles Alice’s transformation brilliantly.

Lucas Beineke, Wednesday’s beau, is played with flair by Evin Burton, who is a senior at Hampden-Sydney College. Lucas easily evokes the audience’s sympathy as he struggles to please and placate both his own family and Wednesday’s family. 

Spirited from the old Addams family crypt are creepy and fascinating ancestors who serve as a singing and dancing chorus to guide the audience through the play. The 11 ancestors from different eras include: Bride Addams (Maryska Connolly), Caveman Addams (Gregory Gibbs, Jr.), Conquistador Addams (Pearce),  Courtesan Addams (Melissa Meinhard), Flapper Addams (Sarah Reynolds), Flight Attendant Addams (Ellis Parker), Prom Queen Addams (Sarah Varela), Puritan Addams (Yasemin Rende), and Saloon Girl Addams (Shannon Lashway), who also performs an entrancing Moon ballet in Act 2. Rounding out the chorus of ancestors are Twin Children Addams, ten-year-old Lilly Redd and Madelyn Schock. As a whole, these actors collectively have appeared in over a dozen Waterworks plays. The costume team of Marlow Walters – with Melissa Meinhard, Liz Walters, Maryska Connolly, and Sarah Mullins-Spears – enhances the production with their wonderfully designed costumes, makeup, and hair styles, all in shades of shroud-gray and white.

A mansion-full of kudos goes to brilliant behind-the-scenes work of the Waterworks creative team and staff for giving the play such vibrant life. The Production Staff of director Logue and technical director Billy Tucker, includes the incredible talents of choreographer Kolby Logue and dance captain Shannon Lashway, as well as music director Maurice Ellis who is a veteran of 30 theater productions, and assistant music director Maya Hoffman. The Technical Staff consists of production manager Kolby Logue, stage manager LeeAnn Schock and assistant stage manager Marlow Walters, and includes lighting designer Mike Montgomery and light board operator Geraldine Mongold, with sound lead Paul Maserjian and sound board operators Troy Halliday, plus the props team of Enoch Gather and Geraldine Mongold. Lastly, supporting all of this effort is the 20-member Set Design and Construction Staff, led with keen insight by Billy Tucker.

Give yourself a Halloween treat without its trick and go see the Waterworks Theater production of The Addams Family: A New Musical Comedy, which runs Oct. 18 and 19 at 7:30 p.m. Waterworks added a matinee on Saturday, Oct. 19 due to sold out crowds. Tickets can be purchased at https://waterworksplayers.org/buytickets.

Editor’s note: Jes Simmons wrote this for the Farmville Herald.