GYPSY OF THE MONTH: Barrett Martin of 'The Addams Family'

The Addams Family appears to have redefined "critic-proof." The musical opened in April to mostly negative reviews, yet it has been grossing over a million dollars a week, trailing only juggernauts Wicked and The Lion King as Broadway's biggest earner—and inspiring where-did-they-go-right analyses by newspapers that panned it, like the New York Times and New Jersey's The Record.

"The true critics for us are the audience," says Addams Family cast member Barrett Martin. "We're not disappointed if the critics hate it. We are disappointed if an audience isn't having a good time. This show, every day the audiences are loving it, they're on their feet, they're laughing. That's the true test of whether or not we're doing what we're supposed to."

Martin is no stranger to being in a show that gets battered by critics: He was also in the original casts of Urban Cowboy and Young Frankenstein. The former flopped almost immediately; the latter managed a 14-month run. But like The Addams Family, Young Frankenstein was prejudged by critics, according to Martin, and their preconceptions influenced the reviews. "With Young Frankenstein, they blew out of proportion the whole premium seating. It seems that was the narrative they were going with: Every seat's being charged at a ridiculous amount of money. Same with this show. Once things changed in Chicago with the creative team and the consultation with Jerry [Zaks], the press decided the narrative they're going to go with is, Is the show in trouble? Can they save it?" says Martin, who was in The Addams Family's pre-Broadway production in Chicago last year as well as two readings that preceded it.

"It's unfortunate that the critics have become less, what's the word, objective," Martin adds. "They refuse to acknowledge if the audience is enjoying it. They could be surrounded by 1,200 people who are having a good time, and if they don't like it, they're still going to say it's not a good show. How can you say it's not a good show if 1,200 people are enjoying themselves? It may not be what you enjoy, but it's not necessarily a true statement to say it's not a good show."

Martin first got involved with Addams when he did the so-called dance lab, where choreographer Sergio Trujillo started working out choreography. His last Broadway show was also choreographed by Trujillo: the 2009 revival of Guys and Dolls, which Martin was in for the last 8 weeks of its 15-week run (it too had received unfavorable reviews). The three months between Young Frankenstein's closing and his joining Guys and Dolls was one of the few lulls Martin has experienced professionally since moving to New York. And it was a lull affecting the whole business rather than Martin in particular: Fourteen Broadway shows, including Young Frankenstein, closed in January 2009. Martin faced a similar situation shortly after he arrived in NYC in May 2001. He did some industrials and workshops, but then 9/11 happened and people stopped coming to New York. A number of plays shuttered, and fewer new ones were being developed or cast for a while since the tourism outlook was unsure.

Apart from the occasional cater-waiter gig, Martin has not had to rely on non-performing jobs to get by. In fact, a couple of times when he was on the brink of "desperation" employment, he got a part. After he moved to Los Angeles early in his career, he applied for a job at a Blockbuster to make ends meet, and was hired—the same day he was cast in a Disney production. Post-9/11, on the same day Bally's contacted him to start working as a trainer, he got the call that he would be in the Broadway-bound production of Urban Cowboy.

Urban Cowboy had its out-of-town tryout in Miami in 2002 and opened on Broadway in March 2003, with Martin 1 of the 13 people in the cast making their Broadway debut. The reviews were brutal, and "we were told after opening night that we were closing the next night," Martin says. But then the producers decided to try to keep the show open, and it lasted until mid-May. "We did play to some of the smallest audiences I've ever played—220 people, maybe," recalls Martin, who believes the show failed in part because its country-music score wasn't an ideal fit for Broadway. "I don't think there's a country station on New York radio; there doesn't seem to be a big country audience. So it didn't make for a good New York show in that sense," he says. The show, he adds, was also a victim of bad timing: The musicians union went on strike for a few days while Cowboy was in tech, and the show opened one week after the United States invaded Iraq. "That is a time of war, still very few people are coming to the city," says Martin. "It really was a bad time to open."

His memories of Urban Cowboy, however, are positive. "I've never had so much fun with an entire cast—creating a show and on stage," he says. "It was a blast, and we loved and appreciated every minute of it."

Martin's next show brought special memories of another kind. In 2004 and '05, he was on the tour of Movin' Out, Twyla Tharp's danced-through show set to the songs of Billy Joel. "As a dancer, it was artistically the most fulfilling show that I've ever done," says Martin. "I enjoyed working that hard, because it was gratifying every night to finish the show—to know that you made it through. I'm happy not doing another dance show again like that, because it was such a great experience."

He rejoined the Movin' Out tour in 2006 after taking a break to be part of the first Chicago production of Wicked for six months. And then, following his second go-round with Movin' Out, he joined the Broadway company of Wicked for a couple of months, filling in for an injured performer. Also in the Broadway cast of Wicked at that time: Megan Sikora, who's currently appearing in Promises, Promises and is engaged to Martin. They will be married September 19 at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.

When they had just begun dating, Martin and his now fiancée danced together at the 2006 Kennedy Center Honors, in the segment honoring Andrew Lloyd Webber. Sikora and Martin also both have roles in The Miraculous Year, an HBO pilot currently in production. Miraculous, which is directed by Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and written by Tony winner John Logan (Red), is set behind the scenes of a fictional new Broadway musical. Susan Sarandon, Frank Langella, Hope Davis, Norbert Leo Butz, Patti LuPone and Stark Sands are among the stars of the program, which is expected to air early next year.

Martin's previous screen work includes a chorus part in the 2005 film version of The Producers, directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, for whom he would later dance on stage in Young Frankenstein. He also has TV credits from childhood. He appeared in a 1992 episode of Rescue 911, reenacting an actual incident when a gas can blew up in a young boy's face, and he did commercials for Cap'n Crunch, Quaker Oats and Allstate.

Born in the Chicago area, Martin lived in its western suburbs as a boy. It was there, at age 3½, that he took his first dance class, tap (his first pair of tap shoes today hangs on the mirror in his dressing room). His family moved to Mequon, Wisc., outside Milwaukee, when he was in high school. By then he was spending as many as 22 hours a week in the dance studio, training in all genres. A preteen Martin had parts in The Music Man and Mame at Wagon Wheel Theatre in Warsaw, Ind., and during high school he performed in a revue at Chicagoland's Great America theme park.

Martin graduated from high school a semester early and moved to Florida to take a job at Disney World. After just 2½ months in the Beauty and the Beast show at Disney-MGM Studios, he was hired for a cruise ship, and went to sea aboard the legendary Queen Elizabeth 2. He visited a total of 33 countries while performing on the ship for six months.

"Norway stands out as being absolutely gorgeous," Martin says when asked about the travel highlights, "all the fjords and the landscape there. I love Italy, Tuscany and that area. I also enjoyed Scotland. I just enjoyed the difference in all the different countries. It's neat how different the cultures are throughout Europe."

Martin was in the Mediterranean when his high school graduation took place. He'd been accepted at USC but deferred his enrollment twice, first for the Disney World job and then for the QE2. When his cruise contract ended, he moved to L.A., planning finally to matriculate (he wanted to attend USC's film school). But a few more successful auditions put an end to his college plans for good. His first performing job in L.A. was in the stage show produced for the Tarzan movie premiere at Hollywood's El Capitan Theatre in 1999. Not long after, he won a role on the Footloose tour, his first Equity production.

After six months in Footloose, Martin went on the road with a new musical, Barry Manilow's Copacabana. Its 2000-01 tour was intended as a pre-Broadway tryout, though the show has yet to reach New York. Martin did get here, however, relocating to NYC when the Copacabana tour concluded. Since then, his work has virtually all been on Broadway or Broadway tours. He appeared in two shows at City Center during the 2007 Encores! season, Follies and Stairway to Paradise.

In The Addams Family, the ensemble is composed of Addams ancestors—ghost-like characters from various eras in history. Martin portrays the Pilgrim ancestor, and he understudies Lurch (Zachary James, the regular Lurch, hasn't missed a performance yet). The Addams Family chorus also enact the puppetry effects—Cousin It and other creepy crawlies around the Addams home. "We make the magic happen, without being seen," explains Martin, who says he and his castmates call the outfit they wear during the black-light puppetry scenes "a black Snuggie."

Such additional duties are fine with Martin, as he considers mastering the variety of skills needed in an ensemble to be his forte, rather than one specific genre of dance. "They've decided to make 'Broadway' a genre, like on So You Think You Can Dance, and I would actually say that is my strength, because of my versatility," he says. "I'm not a phenomenal technician, I'm not a phenomenal modern dancer, I'm not a phenomenal ballet dancer, I'm not, like, a hoofer. But if you teach me choreography for anything—from hip-hop to tap to whatever—I'll do my best."

As much as Martin feels fortunate to be continually employed on Broadway, he also feels lucky to work with the people he does. "I love the community that we're in," he says. Playing softball in the Broadway Show League allows him to not only spend more time with his castmates but also keep up the sports life that he had to abandon in high school in order to have enough time for dance lessons, chorus and theater. "I'm very athletic, I love sports," says the 6-foot-3 Martin, who was on the basketball and track teams in school and is now an outfielder in the Broadway Show League.

Photos of Barrett, from top: outside the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in late July; backstage at Urban Cowboy, with castmate Justin Greer; with his fiancée, Megan  Sikora, on Addams Family's opening night; second from left, in Movin' Out, with (from left) Cody Green, Holly Cruikshank and Michael Snipe Jr.; as an Addams Family ancestor, far right, with (from left) Nathan Lane, Erick Buckley, Clark Johnsen, Charlie Sutton and Fred Inkley. [Addams Family photo by Joan Marcus]