GARDEN CITY – When the fourth – or is it the fifth? I forget – reprise of The Addams Family debuts at the Pickleville Playhouse on Friday, Sept. 26, its cast will be filled with veteran performers with just a handful of newcomers.
After all, when you’ve already got a perfect cast, why mess with it?
The talented Davis clan at Pickleville Playhouse has certainly had ample opportunity to test their returning cast members, having previously performed The Addams Family for loyal audiences in 2019, 2020 (COVID be damned!), 2021 and 2022 as the troupe’s annual fall production.
Pickleville director Derek Davis will return as Gomez, the debonair but slightly unhinged head of the Addams family, who finds himself stuck uncomfortably between a rock (his wife) and hard place (his daughter).
His real wife – the lovely Whitley Osborn Davis – will reprise her role as his stage wife, the deliciously eerie Morticia.
The delightful Kenzie Davis Kremin is also back, playing the homicidally distressed Wednesday Addams, who just wants her family to act normal long enough for her to get engaged.
In another real-life husband-wife pairing, Nathan Kremin will reappear as Wednesday’s dim-bulb intended Lucas Beineke, who has no idea what he’s marrying into.
As Lucas’ control-freak father, Shayne Taylor returns as the stuffed-shirt businessman Mal Beineke.
Also returning from the 2022 cast are Angie Call as Mel’s downtrodden wife Alice and Dan Call as the moon-struck Uncle Fester.
If you’re keeping score, that’s three married couples on one stage so far. But wait, there’s more!
Playing the roles of singing and dancing Addams’ ancestors will be Pickleville veterans J.R. Haynie and Chelsie Davis Haynie. Not only are they happily married, but the couple actually got engaged years ago on the rustic Pickleville stage.
Rounding out the cast for the pre-Halloween production will be Andrea Davis as the demented Grandma Addams; Lincoln Haynie as the precocious masochist Pugsley; Taylor Seth Hall replacing the towering James Case as the deadpan domestic Lurch; and Alec Foote and Sharli Davis King, also appearing as Addams’ corpse-like ancestors.
Sadly, even the talented Davis folks still haven’t figured out how to bring the disembodied hand Thing to a live stage – or even a dead one.
Performances of The Addams Family are slated for Friday, Sept. 26 through Saturday, Oct. 25.
Tickets are already on sale at www.picklevilleplayhouse.com/ticket-information
The Pickleville Playhouse is located at 2049 South Bear Lake Blvd. in Garden City, Utah.