‘Addams Family’ Back With Returning, New Cast
July 13, 2022 at 4:06 p.m.
‘Addams Family’ Back With Returning, New Cast
By David L. Slone-
During its 60th season in 2015, one of the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts’ productions was the musical “The Addams Family.”
The show returns this summer, July 14-23, with some of the cast from the 2015 production back, as well as a slew of new cast members.
Reprising his role as Lurch is longtime Wagon Wheel veteran Andy Robinson.
“This was a show that we did that I think we were really surprised by just the audience reaction. It was just a really popular show,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “I think everybody has kind of a darkness about them that this appeals to. But for me, playing Lurch, which is one of the classic, silent clowns that I like to play, it was an easy choice to make to say yes to do the role again.”
He said he has less hair to attach his wig to, and the lines and the crevices of the monster makeup are easier to find, but “it’s been really fun to recreate it, not to do the same thing, but to recreate it.”
Robinson pointed out that Jennifer Dow is back playing Grandma Addams, while Kira Lace Hawkins is playing Alice Beineke, the suburban housewife/mother of the boy that Wednesday Addams dates.
“So we have a number of people that were in the cast before - the old-timers,” he said. “We have some fabulous new actors as well.”
Playing Morticia Addams is Cassie Maurer. This was her first season at the Wagon Wheel and her first time in a production of “The Addams Family.”
“To have people who are so established in their notions of their characters and to have them feel very comfortable in what they’re doing, it does help for me to have something solid to base my foundation off of as an actor approaching this role for the first time,” she said.
Taking on the iconic role of Morticia was a little overwhelming at first for her, Maurer said.
“There’s so many preconceptions of the character Morticia, and of all the characters in ‘The Addams Family,’ so approaching it was difficult in the sense that I want to be original in my approach, but also I want to fulfill the expectations that the audience will have,” Maurer said. “That aside, it’s such a fun role to play and to be this very powerful matriarch character as a young woman. It’s like very, very fun and empowering to do.”
She gets tap into her dark side a little bit, too.
“I’m always a very optimistic, happy, smiley person so to be on stage and not be allowed to smile is quite the challenge, but it is very fun,” Maurer said.
In this story of the Addams family, they are visiting the graveyard for an annual gathering of all family members, living dead. Wednesday decides to introduce her new “normal” boyfriend, Lucas, to the family. In protest, Uncle Fester enlists the help of the Addams’ ancestors to call an end to the young budding romance, according to a synopsis on ogunquitplayhouse.org. As Wednesday admits that she is falling in love, Morticia, Gomez and Pugsley worry about her changing ways.
“It’s kind of a classic. The perspective in-laws come to dinner - so fish out of water, suburban family from Ohio comes to Central Park in New York, which is where, somehow, the Addams have a mansion, and then sort of the darkness and joy of everyone is explored and a dinner table conversation game happens at the end of Act I,” Robinson said.
The use of the ancestors is really fun, he said, because it creates an ensemble of people who are involved in the story in every scene, which is fun for the actors.
The actors were getting a makeup tutorial on Tuesday from Dow.
“Jen Dow is explaining how the monster, the ghoul makeup goes on and what to highlight. It’s a fun part of the summer and being a person in the company and now you get some makeup instructions,” Robinson said.
Maurer said her makeup was a bit extensive.
“I, for my makeup plot, I have to do like a white watercolor base all over and then we have some charcoals that we do on our faces, and I’m lucky, in a sense, that I don’t have to go full out looking dead like the ancestors have to do with the black eyes and just look like they’re rotting a little bit. But I, more so, get to do just very pale and like glamor makeup,” she said.
She said Dow is doing all the prosthetics and latex, which Maurer hadn’t got to see yet as of Tuesday.
“This is a little secret, but she uses torn brown paper towel in the mix of latex to sort of create like this wrinkled, but also droopy, skin. It’s just a lot of fun,” Robinson said.
Maurer said Dow designed all these makeup plots herself and “she’s just really incredible with all of the work she’s done.”
The music and lyrics for “The Addams Family” are by Andrew Lippa.
“I would say the music all has a very nice pop-rock groove to it. There’s a lot of tango that influences it throughout because the Addams love their tango. But it’s all, for the most part, very upbeat, very fun, and there are some earworms. You’ll leave the show with a song stuck in your head for the next couple of days for sure,” Maurer said.
Robinson said The Addams Family theme song is woven into the show in places that are kind of surprising.
“The whole song doesn’t happen, but there are elements of it that pop up in the orchestration,” he said.
Maurer grew up in Hilton Head, S.C. Her mother was a professional dancer who eventually got into theater, which made Maurer want to do theater. She started getting into musical theater and performing on stage, eventually deciding that’s what she wants to do as a career.
She applied to bachelor of fine arts programs across the country, getting into the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. She recently graduated from there with a BFA in musical theater and after her contract with the Wagon Wheel, she is off to New York to pursue a career in musical theater and live performance.
“The Addams Family” is her fourth and final show of the 2022 summer season at the Wagon Wheel.
“This is my last one, so I’m going out with a bang,” she said.
When Robinson isn’t on the Wagon Wheel stage, or directing or co-directing a production, he runs the musical theater program at the Chicago Academy for the Arts, which is an independent arts high school in Chicago. He works with ninth- through 12th-graders. He runs a program where professionals teach all the elements of musical theater training - dance, voice, acting, musical theater history - and they do three shows a year.
He works across the hall from Ben Dicke, who runs the theater program. Dicke has appeared on the Wagon Wheel stage and directed or co-directed shows for many years.
“We collaborate in Chicago as well as in the Wagon Wheel,” Robinson said.
They will be co-directing the next show, “The Comedy of Errors,” July 28 to Aug. 6.
For tickets to Wagon Wheel shows, contact the box office or visit the website at https://www.wagonwheelcenter.org/.
During its 60th season in 2015, one of the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts’ productions was the musical “The Addams Family.”
The show returns this summer, July 14-23, with some of the cast from the 2015 production back, as well as a slew of new cast members.
Reprising his role as Lurch is longtime Wagon Wheel veteran Andy Robinson.
“This was a show that we did that I think we were really surprised by just the audience reaction. It was just a really popular show,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “I think everybody has kind of a darkness about them that this appeals to. But for me, playing Lurch, which is one of the classic, silent clowns that I like to play, it was an easy choice to make to say yes to do the role again.”
He said he has less hair to attach his wig to, and the lines and the crevices of the monster makeup are easier to find, but “it’s been really fun to recreate it, not to do the same thing, but to recreate it.”
Robinson pointed out that Jennifer Dow is back playing Grandma Addams, while Kira Lace Hawkins is playing Alice Beineke, the suburban housewife/mother of the boy that Wednesday Addams dates.
“So we have a number of people that were in the cast before - the old-timers,” he said. “We have some fabulous new actors as well.”
Playing Morticia Addams is Cassie Maurer. This was her first season at the Wagon Wheel and her first time in a production of “The Addams Family.”
“To have people who are so established in their notions of their characters and to have them feel very comfortable in what they’re doing, it does help for me to have something solid to base my foundation off of as an actor approaching this role for the first time,” she said.
Taking on the iconic role of Morticia was a little overwhelming at first for her, Maurer said.
“There’s so many preconceptions of the character Morticia, and of all the characters in ‘The Addams Family,’ so approaching it was difficult in the sense that I want to be original in my approach, but also I want to fulfill the expectations that the audience will have,” Maurer said. “That aside, it’s such a fun role to play and to be this very powerful matriarch character as a young woman. It’s like very, very fun and empowering to do.”
She gets tap into her dark side a little bit, too.
“I’m always a very optimistic, happy, smiley person so to be on stage and not be allowed to smile is quite the challenge, but it is very fun,” Maurer said.
In this story of the Addams family, they are visiting the graveyard for an annual gathering of all family members, living dead. Wednesday decides to introduce her new “normal” boyfriend, Lucas, to the family. In protest, Uncle Fester enlists the help of the Addams’ ancestors to call an end to the young budding romance, according to a synopsis on ogunquitplayhouse.org. As Wednesday admits that she is falling in love, Morticia, Gomez and Pugsley worry about her changing ways.
“It’s kind of a classic. The perspective in-laws come to dinner - so fish out of water, suburban family from Ohio comes to Central Park in New York, which is where, somehow, the Addams have a mansion, and then sort of the darkness and joy of everyone is explored and a dinner table conversation game happens at the end of Act I,” Robinson said.
The use of the ancestors is really fun, he said, because it creates an ensemble of people who are involved in the story in every scene, which is fun for the actors.
The actors were getting a makeup tutorial on Tuesday from Dow.
“Jen Dow is explaining how the monster, the ghoul makeup goes on and what to highlight. It’s a fun part of the summer and being a person in the company and now you get some makeup instructions,” Robinson said.
Maurer said her makeup was a bit extensive.
“I, for my makeup plot, I have to do like a white watercolor base all over and then we have some charcoals that we do on our faces, and I’m lucky, in a sense, that I don’t have to go full out looking dead like the ancestors have to do with the black eyes and just look like they’re rotting a little bit. But I, more so, get to do just very pale and like glamor makeup,” she said.
She said Dow is doing all the prosthetics and latex, which Maurer hadn’t got to see yet as of Tuesday.
“This is a little secret, but she uses torn brown paper towel in the mix of latex to sort of create like this wrinkled, but also droopy, skin. It’s just a lot of fun,” Robinson said.
Maurer said Dow designed all these makeup plots herself and “she’s just really incredible with all of the work she’s done.”
The music and lyrics for “The Addams Family” are by Andrew Lippa.
“I would say the music all has a very nice pop-rock groove to it. There’s a lot of tango that influences it throughout because the Addams love their tango. But it’s all, for the most part, very upbeat, very fun, and there are some earworms. You’ll leave the show with a song stuck in your head for the next couple of days for sure,” Maurer said.
Robinson said The Addams Family theme song is woven into the show in places that are kind of surprising.
“The whole song doesn’t happen, but there are elements of it that pop up in the orchestration,” he said.
Maurer grew up in Hilton Head, S.C. Her mother was a professional dancer who eventually got into theater, which made Maurer want to do theater. She started getting into musical theater and performing on stage, eventually deciding that’s what she wants to do as a career.
She applied to bachelor of fine arts programs across the country, getting into the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. She recently graduated from there with a BFA in musical theater and after her contract with the Wagon Wheel, she is off to New York to pursue a career in musical theater and live performance.
“The Addams Family” is her fourth and final show of the 2022 summer season at the Wagon Wheel.
“This is my last one, so I’m going out with a bang,” she said.
When Robinson isn’t on the Wagon Wheel stage, or directing or co-directing a production, he runs the musical theater program at the Chicago Academy for the Arts, which is an independent arts high school in Chicago. He works with ninth- through 12th-graders. He runs a program where professionals teach all the elements of musical theater training - dance, voice, acting, musical theater history - and they do three shows a year.
He works across the hall from Ben Dicke, who runs the theater program. Dicke has appeared on the Wagon Wheel stage and directed or co-directed shows for many years.
“We collaborate in Chicago as well as in the Wagon Wheel,” Robinson said.
They will be co-directing the next show, “The Comedy of Errors,” July 28 to Aug. 6.
For tickets to Wagon Wheel shows, contact the box office or visit the website at https://www.wagonwheelcenter.org/.
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