THE ADDAMS FAMILY Announces Tour; To Start 9/2011 in New Orleans

The new Broadway musical THE ADDAMS FAMILY, based on the bizarre and beloved family of characters created by legendary cartoonist Charles Addams, will begin a national tour in September, 2011 at the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts in New Orleans, LA. A complete tour schedule will be announced in the coming weeks.

THE ADDAMS FAMILY, which began performances March 8 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, has grossed $9,118,217 through its first seven weeks (an average of over $1.3 million per week), placing the musical among Broadway's highest-grossing shows in each of its weeks on Broadway.

Prior to Broadway, the musical grossed $12,031,010 during 8 weeks at the Oriental Theatre in Chicago, becoming the most successful pre-Broadway engagement in that city's history (a city that also hosted the world premieres of such huge successes as The Producers and Spamalot).

The national tour of THE ADDAMS FAMILY will be the first Broadway musical to take advantage of the incentive programs offered by Louisiana Entertainment, the state's comprehensive entertainment industry development office.

THE ADDAMS FAMILY features a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, and music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa. The production is directed and designed (sets and costumes) by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch, with creative consultation by Jerry Zaks and choreography by Sergio Trujillo. Lighting design is by Natasha Katz, sound design by Acme Sound Partners and puppetry by Basil Twist.

THE ADDAMS FAMILY features an original story. It's every parent's nightmare. Your little girl has suddenly become a young woman, and what's worse, has fallen deliriously in love with a sweet, smart young man from a respectable family. Yes, Wednesday Addams, the ultimate princess of darkness, has a "normal" boyfriend, and for parents Gomez and Morticia, it's a shocking development that turns the Addams house upside down when they are forced to host a dinner for the young man and his parents.

In a prolific career spanning six decades, Charles Addams created several thousand cartoons, sketches and drawings, many of which were published in The New Yorker. But it was his creation of characters that came to be known as The Addams Family that brought Addams his greatest acclaim. With a unique style that combined the twisted, macabre and just plain weird with charm, wit and enchantment, Addams' drawings have entertained millions worldwide and served as the inspiration for multiple television series and motion pictures.

THE ADDAMS FAMILY is produced on Broadway by Stuart Oken, Roy Furman, Michael Leavitt, Five Cent Prods., Stephen Schuler, Decca Theatricals, Scott M. Delman, Stuart Ditsky, Terry Allen Kramer, Stephanie P. McClelland, James L. Nederlander, Eva Price, Jam Theatricals/Mary Lu Roffe, Pittsburgh CLO/Gutterman-Swinsky, Vivek Tiwary/Gary Kaplan, The Weinstein Co./Clarence, LLC and Adam Zotovich/Tribe Theatricals, by special arrangement with Elephant Eye Theatrical.

For more information on THE ADDAMS FAMILY, visit www.theaddamsfamilymusical.com .