The Addams Family!

Cabrillo Stage’s First Offering of its Summer Season Begins June 22

The Addams Family will spend three weeks on the stage of the Crocker theater to kick off Cabrillo Stage’s 2017 summer musical season.

This entertaining and sidesplitting Broadway show wowed audiences in 2010 and was nominated for two Tony and eight Drama Desk Awards.

The eccentric characters in the musical are based on cartoons by Charles Addams that originally appeared as single-panel cartoons originally published in The New Yorker between their debut in 1938 and Charles Addams’ death in 1988.

The TV show which premiered in 1964 and following film and animated adaptations highlighted his creation of this oddly unique family that included Gomez and Morticia Addams, their children Wednesday and Pugsley, close family members Uncle Fester and Grandmama, their butler Lurch, and the disembodied hand Thing. The Addams Family has been captivating audiences for over almost 80 years and they are at their hilarious best in this new musical comedy!

Helping to tell the tale are the Addams Family ancestors who came from the old country and settled on a plot of land in what is now New York’s Central Park. The family flourished, and a huge house was built where a great Spanish oak, the Addams Family Tree, had been planted to protect the ancestral graves from such annoyances as sunlight and tourists. Family values and traditions abound, although somewhat different than most. But as the opening song says, “It’s family first and family last, and family by and by, when you’re an Addams, the standard answers don’t apply!”

In the upside-down, kooky world of the Addams Family, to be sad is to be happy, to feel pain is to feel joy, and death and suffering is the stuff of their dreams. In this original story, Gomez and Morticia deal with challenges that face any parents. Specifically, the kids are growing up.

Beloved daughter, Wednesday, the ultimate princess of darkness, is now eighteen and has fallen in love with Lucas Beineke, a nice, smart young man from a normal, respectable, Ohio family.

The Beinekes are invited to dinner, and on that uproariously funny, fateful night, secrets are disclosed, relationships are tested and the Addams Family must face up to the one horrible thing they’ve managed to avoid for generations — change.

Adam Saucedo (Gomez) and Danielle Crook (Morticia) lead a stellar cast of singers, dancers and actors directed by Bobby Marchessault and choreographed by Makai Hernandez. Mickey McGushin, Musical Director, will bring the music to glorious life. Scenic Designer, Skip Epperson and Technical Director, Marcel Tjioe promise some stage trickery to highlight this dark humored comedy that will be enjoyed by the whole family. The Addams Family runs from Thursday, June 22 to Sunday, July 9.

Next, Beauty And The Beast casts its spell. With this age-old tale of love and redemption, and a lush musical score, it became an international sensation that has played to over 35 million people throughout the world.

Adapted from Walt Disney Pictures’ academy award-winning 1991 animated film based on the French fairy tale by Jeanne-Marie Le prince de Beaumont, it’s a love story that transcends first impressions and appearance, reminding us to look past the exterior of a person and see into their heart. Beauty And The Beast runs July 20 through August 13.

Now in its 36th year of producing Broadway style musicals, prepare to be highly entertained and enchanted by Cabrillo Stage’s 2017 productions, the hilarious antics of The Addams Family and a Disney musical of a classic fairy tale Beauty And The Beast.

Purchase tickets on line at cabrillostage.com. Phone and direct box office sales begin June 2. Box-office hours are 12 to 6 p.m., Thursday through Saturday, 831-479-6154. You may purchase tickets individually or become a Season Subscriber and see both shows at a discounted price. All performances are held at the Cabrillo Crocker Theater on the Cabrillo College Campus, 6500 Soquel Drive in Aptos, CA.

On behalf of Cabrillo Stage, Artistic Director Jon Nordgren wishes to thank the donors for their generous, ongoing support. “Thanks to your volunteerism, donations and most importantly, your years of purchasing tickets, we can continue to produce Broadway caliber musical theatre right here in Santa Cruz County!”