EXETER — They’re not mysterious or spooky, but the Wyoming Area Drama Club students are reaching into their inner ghouls for their upcoming musical “The Addams Family.”
The show will be held at 7 p.m. Friday, March 24 and Saturday, March 25 and at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 26.
Drama club director Barbara Bullions said the students rehearse anywhere from four to five days a week working with vocal coaches and dance choreographers.
Now, it’s all about preparing for the show.
“Basically, we’re done with choreography and done with the vocal lessons, so now what we’re doing is just putting it all together,” she said.
The show follows the Addams Family and daughter Wednesday Addams, who has taken an interest in Lucas Beineke, someone her parents have never met. She confides in her father, Gomez, of her love and asks he keep it a secret from his wife, Morticia. Things come to blows, however, when Lucas and his family come to dinner at the Addams family residence.
“The Addams Family” has had television and movie adaptations, and senior student Eve Urban, who portrays Morticia, said it’s important to stick to the musical version of the characters.
“The musical does different from the TV show and the movies that everyone knows,” the 18-year-old said. “Trying to keep the character that was written for the musical, because musicals are cheesier and they take everything and amplify it 100 percent, but still keep the character everyone knows. It is a different story than what everyone is used to.”
Bullions said the students saw the show a few years ago at a state conference in York and fell in love with it.
Junior Tommy Walkowiak played Lucas in a local theatre show but is portraying Gomez in the Wyoming Area play.
The 17-year-old said portraying the two characters has been a fun challenge, but said he enjoys being an Addams family member more.
“It’s very different from this experience being inside the craziness and hecticness of the Addams family,” he said. “It’s so much more different from the normal side of it. I think I like it a little bit more, because you get to really indulge in your passion and that’s what the Addams family is all about, and the other family doesn’t do that all that much.”
When the show’s curtain drops at the end of the March 26 show, the drama club’s year will wrap up as will the acting careers of Urban and fellow senior Emily Uritz, 18.
Uritz, who plays Wednesday, has been involved with the drama club since arriving at the Secondary Center in seventh grade and is soaking in as much as she can before the final curtain call.
“This will definitely be our last hurrah and it’s sad,” she said. “I think the show itself is just going to be great and super exciting, especially because it’s our last one.”
