Snap snap

Brooks Addams Family Musical cast is (nearly) ready to dazzle you darkly

The Addams Family Musical

When: 7 pm nightly May 11 to 13, 2 pm matinee May 14.

What: The Brooks Theatre Company’s spring musical, featuring top teen talent singing, dancing, acting, fencing – plus a full live teen band, and teen-created costumes, sets, and more.

Where: Max Cameron Theatre. Tickets $20 each, available at the Brooks Secondary office.

“You know, like when ‘The End’ gets written across the screen in script in a classic film, and the music is all ‘ahhhh?’ explained Brooks Theatre Company director and producer Jen Didcott.

Director Jen Didcott

In the crowded music room at Brooks Secondary School mid-April, the cast of The Addams Family Musical diligently tried to make their ‘ahs’ ethereal, teen voices harmonizing for the final song of the two-hour show. Raymond Domalain, who plays Lurch, practiced his deep, zombie-baritone one-liner –  “Loooove” – over and over. Looove. Looove.

Some of the chorus of 'dancestors': Bronwyn Chernove, Delaney Long, Lily Frost, Esiana Hargrave, Max Martineau and Tristan Somers.

The teen musicians – who will accompany the show live and on stage – kept up with the lyrical repeats and the chaos. Start stop, start stop. They’re nearly there, and thank goodness, as it’s just three weeks to show time, for the second major musical in two years.

Anjy Apuwatu on drums

Nathaniel Hargrave on bass guitar

After seven months of rehearsals, The Addams Family Musical hits the stage May 11 to 14 at the Max Cameron. It was on Jen’s ‘bucket list’ of musicals she wants to produce, but ultimately, the teens themselves voted this was the show they wanted to do.

Why? The 2010 musical – which started on Broadway – is based on Charles Addams’ 1930s-era newspaper comics about the infamously death-obsessed family. Surprisingly, the characters have stayed fresh and relevant for nearly a century.

“What’s enduring about The Addams Family is it explores different ways to love,” said Jen. “Love in unexpected places, love between unexpected people. Sometimes, the oddball couples are the ones that thrive.”

In the role of Grandmama is Grade 12 student Falyn Fogarty, who played Rosie in last year’s Brooks production of Mamma Mia. Rosie was a main role and nearly everything was scripted, Falyn explained, but Grandmama offers her more freedom as an actor. Less is known about the character, so she can fill in the blanks.

“They don’t know where she comes from, so I picture her as a kind of immortal being who has been at every major event throughout history,” said Falyn, who plans to take visual arts at Camosun College come fall. “My favourite scene is with Pugsley, because it displays both of our characters so well, and it introduces the sideplot of the acrimonium.”

Acrimonium, according to Addams Family lore, is a potion for helping overly perky people get back in touch with their dark side. Perhaps you know someone who could benefit from it…

In the role of Morticia is Camryn Pukesh, who played Sophie in Mamma Mia. Last year, the players she coaches on Powell River’s U11 female hockey team came to see her in action – and loved it, she remembers. They’ll be back for her final production here, as Camryn is off to the University of Calgary’s Fine Arts program this fall.

“My favourite scene in the musical is ‘Secrets,’ the song I sing with Lydia [Taves, in the role of Alice Beineke] because it shows the playful side to both of our characters.”

Camryn says she appreciates the story because “it shows it’s okay to be weird and funky and have a different outlook on life.”

Brooks will be taking a break from major musicals next year. Jen said the drama program will produce Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in the fall (the original love triangle comedy), and Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach in the spring.

Two musicals in a row is unusual because they are so much work for both students and staff – but both Mamma Mia and Addams Family are part of the school’s creative boom coming back from COVID, Jen explained. For two years, the Brooks Theatre Company was essentially dormant. Now, as the energy in the band room revealed, it’s alive (like the disembodied hand, Thing).

In all of her productions, you’ll witness Jen’s background in stagecraft. It’s her first love, and what she trained for at SFU’s School of Contemporary Arts, before teaching drama in England and now, Canada. If you remember the drivable, animatronic car in Grease (2018) or the aerial silks dream sequence in Mamma Mia, these are examples of how a stagecraft mind can breathe vitality into a production. In the Addams Family, watch for dry ice.

“It’s just that little bit extra where the audience goes, ‘whoa!’”