Run - or Creep or Crawl - to Keystone Theatrics' THE ADDAMS FAMILY at Allenberry

In a world where few things are certain, at least Gomez Addams and his clan are reliable. They're creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky. It's Halloween 365 days a year at their mansion, allegedly hidden within Central Park. Of course Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice found them fit for a musical, cheerfully aided by Andrew Lippa with the words and music needed to tell the tale.

Amanda Nowell directs it at Keystone Theatrics at Allenberry, where the theatre feels in a bit of a park itself, and autumn and Halloween are currently in the air. She's brought us Gomez (Larry Fausnight), Morticia (a seriously dead ringer for the beauty of the Addams family), Uncle Fester (a truly delightful Ozzy Smith, who played Tin Man in Keystone's WIZARD OF OZ), a very leftover hippie-with Grandma (Mary Cote, who couldn't have been better in a too-small role), Wednesday (Quinn Starrett), Pugsley (played by a charmingly petulant Tessa Arnold), Lurch (Cody Sherry), and Cousin Itt (Benton Jackson). She's also brought us the allegedly "normal" Beineke family, dad Mel (Michael Beckstein), a shopping mall developer, his wife Alice (Arin Kelly Ayala, also in THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES), a greeting card writer, and Wednesday's would-be fiance, Lucas Beineke (Elliott Evans). The meeting of families is likely to be a clash of the titans - Wednesday knows it, Gomez knows it, and Morticia is dead set against it.

But the clash of opposite families with totally different lifestyles isn't the only problem. Wednesday and Lucas don't have everything even close to settled. Morticia has decided that Gomez is hiding something from her, and she's prepared for a marital breakup. Mel and Alice have their own problems - she's close to a breakdown with no help from her increasingly rigid husband. Pugsley and Wednesday have their sibling issues... and Uncle Fester has fallen in love with someone completely unobtainable.

Prepare to have fun not with the show alone, but with some riotously funny songs. Gomez, the family, and a collection of deceased relatives give a full explication of what life is about "When You're An Addams," while Fester delivers a stirring and recurring manifesto directing us all not to "talk about anything else but love."

Gomez and Morticia perform a not-unexpected "Tango de Amor." while the entire cast participates in an after-dinner game less fun to the participants (well, maybe not to Alice) than it is to us: "Full Disclosure," in which everyone must reveal the truth about a deep, dark secret. And don't miss Fester's love song of "The Moon and Me."

Can marriages be saved? Will Lucas grow up? Will Morticia calm down? Will Wednesday electrocute Pugsley one more time? And just whose mother IS Grandma?

Run, creep, or crawl to this riotous production through October 30. Contact KeystoneTheatrics.com for tickets and information.

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