All Entries Tagged With: "Ford Center for the Performing Arts"
The Addams Family Musical Review “Recap”
Broadway In Chicago’s pre-Broadway world premiere presentation of The Addams Family, a new musical based on the bizarre family of characters created by legendary cartoonist Charles Addams, opened Wednesday, December 9 at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts’ Oriental Theater. The production continues in Chicago through January 10, and will play Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre beginning March 4, with an anticipated opening date of April 8.
The musical stars Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth as Gomez and Morticia Adams, with Kevin Chamberlin (Uncle Fester), Jackie Hoffman (Grandmama), Zachary James (Lurch), Adam Riegler (Pugsley), and Krysta Rodriguez (Wednesday) rounding out the “Family”. Playing the “family who comes to dinner” are Terrence Mann and Carolee Carmello as Mal and Alice Beineke, and Wesley Taylor as Lucas Beineke, Wednesday’s love interest.
The production features direction and design by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch, book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa, and choreography by Sergio Trujillo.
Wednesday night’s performance was attended by many critics whose reactions are mixed, but the consensus is decidedly positive. Excerpts of some of those reviews follow:
By Hedy Weiss, Theater Critic, The Chicago Sun Times
“…there is rarely a dull moment as each grand shock of the new, each adjustment to change, each recognition of aging and each surprising rebirth wraps its arms itself around the characters of “The Addams Family.”
By Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
Share Your Experience
If you’ve seen The Addams Family Musical, please share your experience with others! Just post a comment to this article, and others can join in the ”conversation”. If you have pictures you would like to share, just e-mail them to afblog@comcast.net, and I will post them here.
Jackie Hoffman Takes The Cabaret Stage
OFFBEAT: ‘Addams Family’ funny favorite Jackie Hoffman on mark with cabaret show
By Philip Potempa, nwitimes.com
Posted: Wednesday, December 2, 2009
It’s rare to laugh so hard you have to hold your side.
But that’s exactly the case when the comic actress Jackie Hoffman takes the cabaret stage.
Hoffman, a member of Chicago’s own famed Second City, is front and center and in rare form in her one-woman show “Whining in the Windy City: Holiday Edition” playing a limited run on Mondays through Dec. 21 at The Royal George Theatre.
Even though New York City is her home, she’s at home with Chicago audiences, which she’s facing every day of the week this month, since she’s also starring as Grandmama in the new Broadway musical “The Addams Family.” It’s the world premiere of the production previewing at the Ford Center for Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre though January 2010.
At Monday’s opening night performance of Hoffman’s cabaret act, some of the cast members, including Bebe Neuwirth, who plays Morticia, attended and shared in the laughs.
Hoffman, who isn’t afraid to say she thinks her “Addams” role should be bigger (among other funny stage revelations), tackles every and any topic possible. She covers everything from her disdain for children and today’s young generation of young women in their 20s (and how they talk) to the countless pitches and pleas she receives from charities asking for donations.
…Sergio Trujillo gives new meaning to multitasking
I found this fantastic article on newcitystage.com and had to share. I knew after seeing Jersey Boys that Sergio Trujillo was special, but I didn’t realize just how amazing he really is.
Broadway Boundless: “Addams Family” choreographer Sergio
Trujillo gives new meaning to multitasking
Sergio Trujillo has a talent for continuing a conversation exactly at the point where he left off, something that serves the choreographer well during an extended interview at the Argo Tea near the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre. It’s where his latest project, the highly anticipated musical version of “The Addams Family,” is in previews for a December 9 world premiere.
It’s the day after Thanksgiving, and he’s in the middle of relating how Debbie Allen (of “Fame” fame) became his sponsor for his Green Card in the early nineties—Trujillo is Canadian by nationality and Colombian by birth—when he leaves briefly to retrieve a tomato-goat-cheese quiche and nonfat latte. He is describing his collaboration with “Addams Family’”s innovative co-directors/designers Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch (“amazing but a new way of working for me”) when he answers his iPhone to clarify a note to an assistant. There is the time Trujillo has to excuse himself for twenty minutes in order to run back to the Oriental to give notes to the cast. Later, at the brand-new Puma flagship store across from the theater (“I’ve been dying to check this place out,” he says), he begins telling me how he had been mugged two weeks earlier on State Street following a late-night production meeting, then stops to admire a pair of black Pumas. “I love these,” he says.
Please, Don’t “Review” the “Preview”
Previews began on Friday, November 13 for the new Addams Family musical at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts in Chicago. And if we refer back to Rick Elice’s statement from our article ”Rick Elice Chats With AFB About “The Addams Family” Musical“, we can assume that he, Marshall (Brickman) and Andrew (Lippa) “listen(ed) very, very carefully (to the audiences)” and will sit down today, November 16, and “figure out what (we) need to do, in terms of the writing of the show, …” After all, this IS a try-out, and every performance is a learning experience.
Theater etiquette requires that we not review a preview, and with good reason. But I don’t think there is any harm in sharing some of the comments I’ve seen floating around the internet…
Just saw it today and it was awesome! The entire cast was amazing!!!! Nathan – you are the ultimate entertainer! You are just wonderful! And Bebe you are beautiful! And everyone in the cast was superb! I will definitely see this again hopefully very soon!
Saw the afternoon matinee…What a HOOT!!…loved Uncle Fester’s song “The Moon and Me”…Great fencing & tango by Bebe & Nathan!
Bebe Neuwirth signing autograph for my mom. She was so sweet.
Kudo’s to the casting director – what a terrific ensemble!
…the special effects … were just amazing…
The score was amazing, not what I expected and I think the set design was so clever and very well used.
Andrew Lippa has provided some quite traditional Broadway-style songs that hearken to a much earlier era. They are tuneful and easy to take in.
Well, from the sound of these comments, I think we can assume that Rick, Marshall and Andrew’s meeting will be full of positive energy!
If you have seen the show, or plan to see it soon, we would love to hear YOUR comments!
Sneak-Peek Video of Vanity Fair Shoot
Great behind-the-scenes footage from the recent photo shoot of The Addams Family portrait for Vanity Fair’s December issue.
Addams Family Musical Blows Into Chicago
“The Addams Family,” a new musical take on the beloved Charles Addams cartoons, blows into Chicago’s Ford Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, November 13. Starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth, and featuring a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (Jersey Boys), The Addams Family is perhaps the most anticipated show of the 2009-10 Broadway season.
