‘Addams Family’ comes to Cape Central High; Friday night's performance rescheduled for Sunday afternoon

Kinder Performance Hall audience members will take a trip to visit the kooky and creepy Addams family, while watching Cape Central High School students perform their adaptation of the musical comedy "The Addams Family".

Central had its opening night Thursday, March 30, with performances to follow at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 1, and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 2, in Cape Girardeau, The Sunday performance has been added to the schedule to replace Friday evening’s performance, which had been canceled because of severe weather. All tickets for Friday will be honored for Sunday’s performance.

The musical comedy takes people in the audience to New York City, Central Park to be exact, and welcomes them into the upside-down world of the Addams family home.

The production follows the new love of Wednesday Addams, love interest Lucas Beineke, and their families as they try to navigate this newfound change. Lucas is a sweet and smart boy whose family comes from Ohio, and is as un-Addams family as they come.

In "The Addams family", where it is "sad" to be happy and revolting to wear color, will the test of love break the barriers between the two families or will the differences be too much to bear?

Emma Weller-Stilson is one of the drama directors at Central, with her main focus being design and technology. Weller-Stilson called the play a fun way to have Halloween in spring, like Christmas in July.

Assistant director Molly Myers said it was really convenient for the new Netflix show "Wednesday" to come out around the same time causing those in the play to be more into the production than they might have been. Bringing in a new generation to know "The Addams Family", Myers said almost all the kids went home and watched the show and were very excited to incorporate in the play the "Wednesday" dance and other newer things for audience members to pick up on.

Rhonda Young, director of the play, said she is so proud of how brave the students were. Some of them had never sung in front of an audience before and others brought in parts of their own personality to the characters to make it stand out.

Each director has her own favorite part of the play, but all agreed to the music being the top part, with different songs and dances. Young said she thinks this play may have more singing and dancing than others they have done. It also is a more inclusive play with most of the characters being in multiple scenes and acts.

"They caught on to the dance moves so quickly, and these are high school boys. They don't do that fancy choreographed stuff, and they caught on. The girls caught on, I mean, I was so impressed with how they picked that up. You know, because working with the group and coordinating moves with the group isn't always very easy," Young said.

All three directors said they were fortunate to have the students pick up leadership roles to help carry the weight of the production.