The Addams Family Musical for Sydney

Exclusive interview with Producer Rodney Rigby.

The Australian premiere of Broadway musical The Addams Family has been announced for Sydney’s Capitol Theatre in March 2013.

Based on the bizarre characters created by legendary cartoonist Charles Addams, further popularised by the 1960s TV series, The Addams Family will be produced in Australia by Rodney Rigby (Jersey Boys, Rock of Ages) together with Stuart Oken, Roy Furman, Michael Leavitt, and Five Cent Productions by special arrangement with Elephant Eye Theatricals and with the support of Events New South Wales on behalf of the NSW Government.

Casting of Addams Family members announced.

Rodney Rigby spoke to Neil Litchfield about the show.

Neil Litchfield: What drew you to The Addams Family? Once again, it’s very different to your current, very different hit productions, Jersey Boys and Rock of Ages

Rodney Rigby: When we were doing Jersey Boys I became friends with Rick Elice, and one day when we were having lunch, I was sort of pumping him to see what else he was working on. As good writers do, they don’t talk about their writing often, but he did give me the heads up that he and Marshall Brickman, his co-author on Jersey Boys were writing a musical based on The Addams Family, and that instantly got my attention.

I've always been a great fan of the Charles Addams cartoons out of The New Yorker, I grew up with the TV series in black and white, then watching cable, I’ve got all the DVDs, and the Motion Picture.

I’ve always been intrigued by those extraordinary characters and about how much they love each other and are a normal family, but where we look at sunshine, they look at the moon and darkness. They have the same cares and the same interests as we do, but it’s just treated so differently

NL: What was the next step?

RR: I met with my fellow producer, Stuart Oken, who was driving the project from a producing / creative direction.  He secured the rights from the Addams Foundation. It was his idea to create a musical based on the Addams work. I met Stuart about two years ago, and we just had a dialogue. I went to the World Premiere in Chicago, and subsequently saw it in New York. We just continued chatting, and we were like-minded in our approach, our thoughts about the show, and a shared vision post-Broadway future for the show.

We then went into the protracted situation of finding the right venue. We wanted to play here at the Capitol Theatre because it’s a beautiful building, which has the right aesthetic and ambience - perfect for the Addams Family. I joked that Charles Addams could have designed this theatre. It’s absolutely the right fit.

So that takes time.

With the few theatres we have in Sydney, the producing community are like aircraft, flying around waiting to land as soon as a theatre becomes available – and you may have to wait two or three years till that happens and you find the right venue.

NL: Tell me about a moment or two in the show that absolutely delight you.

RR: There’s a number with a wonderful truth that Wednesday sings. The conceit of the show is that Wednesday has come of age, and has fallen in love with a young man, and, as daughters do, they want to bring the young man home to meet the family. But she obviously doesn’t know how to deal with bringing a normal person into an un-normal family. So she takes her father into her confidence, and tells him she wants to marry this young man.

This is the first time in Gomez and Morticia’s life together, that he hasn’t been completely truthful with Morticia. So, it creates a conflict between Gomez and Morticia, with Gomez trying to do the right thing by his daughter and his wife.

So there’s tremendous heart, and that was one of the really surprising things about the show.

On the flipside, there’s some really hysterical stuff. There’s some outrageous moments … at the end of Act 1, where Grandma … I can’t take it out of context, because I’m not a good enough storyteller, but it’s outrageous, some really funny stuff – that wonderful witty patter that really comes out of those Kauffman and Hart plays like The Man Who Came to Dinner and You Can’t Take it With You – that whole genre of the 30s. So it’s very sophisticated on one hand, but very appealing.

One of the delightful things about the show is that it’s really the non-family musical for families, because it’s very cool as a guy to go to on a date night with your girlfriend or wife, but it’s also something where you have a shared experience with your children. It’s also something that’s funny and cool if you’re a kid – because you’ve got Wednesday shooting bows and arrows, and torturing Pugsley, and there’s potions and whatever. So it’s a really cool funky twist on a broad idea for a show or subject.

NL: The whole thing of audience is very interesting, given that one of the other shows you’re producing, Jersey Boys has been talked about as the Guy show which men can take their partners along to, as against the reverse. You seem to be breaking the mold about audience expectations.

RR: For me it’s always about storytelling. I always look at a musical and go, is this an engaging story.

I think Rock of Ages and Jersey Boys are poles apart

This is a really interesting story because it deals with issues that families have to deal with. It’s a story about children growing up. Selecting a show is all about the storytelling first, and then it’s about where I think it’s a cultural fit for this market in Australia.

There’s no doubt that the characters of Charles Addams are iconic, and there’s an attraction for children to those characters, and for guys and a shared thing. We really love Lurch and Thing and Cousin Itt, and all those weird, funny characters.

NL: You mentioned Kauffman and Hart’s plays, including You Can’t Take It With You, which has the same plot conceit of the girl bringing the normal guy home to her strange family.

RR: Absolutely, and they were some of the stylistic direction to the background. When you think about the cartoons, Charles Addams did less than 200 cartoons of The Addams Family in his entire 60 year career, so that’s incredibly influential – 200 cartoons having the impact they had. Secondly, they didn’t have any names until the TV program came into being in the 1960s, and the producers said we need to get these characters together as a family, and we’ll call it The Addams Family.

Charles Addams was horrified at that. He was horrified at his name being used for The Addams Family

NL: And are you looking forward to the casting process?

RR: I’m really looking forward to it. I think casting is so important to the success of a show, and I’ve been blessed in the last two shows, having blank pieces of paper. This is the same – we have no preconceived ideas.

We’re probably going to do it in two stages – first we’re going to look for key members of the family late this year, because we want to find the very best artists and lock them away, then go back some time around May or June next year to get the rest of the company.

These are fantastic roles for fantastic actors, so we want to spend our time getting the right skill set for that.

The Addams Family opened at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in March of 2010 where it has grossed over $US62 million at the box office in fourteen months.

The Addams Family features a book by Jersey Boys co-writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, and music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa. The production is directed and designed (sets and costumes) by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch, with creative consultation by Jerry Zaks and choreography by Sergio Trujillo.

Photographs: Broadway cast. Photographer: Joan Marcus.

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More Reading: Frank Hatherley's interview with Rodney Rigby.