Palmer Ridge’s theater; Bear Necessity Theater Company, presents The Addams Family! The Addams Family is their 16th musical, it was aimed towards teens and adults. Josh Belk, the theater teacher says, “It is a fun show that looks at families, relationships, and the weirdness that we all have.” The show was about how Wednesday has to bring two conflicting families together. “Every year, the Addams family awakens their past ancestry and they have a little party, they awaken their ancestors and they dance, but this year is different, Uncle Fester is not allowing the ancestors back into their crypt until Wednesday and Lucas finds love. So now it’s Wednesday’s and Lucas’s job to bring these two opposite families together,” says Ashlyn Boomer (12), who plays Wednesday in the musical.
Josh Belk, the theatre director and head teacher at Palmer Ridge, and Madeline Smith, the Choir Teacher at Palmer Ridge were the leaders of this production. Mr. Belk has been the theatre teacher at Palmer Ridge since 2008, since opening night, Ms. Smith has been at Palmer Ridge for 3 years but she has been a music teacher for 10 years. As the show is directed for adults, and also made for adults to perform, the thespians have accomplished performing at an almost professional level. “As with any musical, the show is originally written for professionals who are adults and can sing, dance, and act at a professional level all at the same time. That’s a lot to ask our high school students to do! They have risen to the challenge, but boy, have they worked hard!” says Ms. Smith.
As someone who has never done theatre, I would’ve thought the process of choosing the musical was extremely difficult, but Mr. Belk and Ms. Smith explained it easily. When the school chooses to do a show, they select a show that has songs, scripts, and everything they could need together. “…. music and lyrics were written by Andrew Lippa. This show came out in 2010. ” Said Ms. Smith. I asked what was challenging about bringing this script to life, and Mr. Belk answered, “One of the biggest challenges was the amount of dance. It was more than we originally anticipated when looking at the show. Another challenge was creating the number of locations that the show takes place in.”
Ashlyn Boomer, (12), plays Wednesday. She said she has loved doing this show and connecting with the cast and crew, this is her second lead in a show. Last fall, she was Anne, in Anne of Green Gables, “this role is a lot easier because I don’t have as many lines, in Anne of Green Gables I also didn’t get to remember any songs, songs are a lot easier to remember.” In The Addams Family Ashlyn has 120 lines, not including songs, in Anne of Green Gables, she had 260 lines. It seemed hard to remember all of the lines that come with having a large lead but Ashlyn has a way of remembering her lines that she won’t forget. “I like to pose my scenes in chunks and my brain is a wheel and as we shift scenes, my memory changes as the wheel moves.” Over time, other casts learn other people’s lines to queue their lines. In The Addams Family, there are 23 songs in total. Ashlyn’s favorite song was “Pulled” because she also previously performed with it.
During the week of opening night the other shows, the cast and crew, and everyone involved have to go through a very intense schedule. On Monday, the cast and crew go through a whole performance from about 3-7 PM, a dress rehearsal. During a dress rehearsal, there is makeup, costumes, props, a set, and a pit orchestra. The thespians have to go directly after school straight to their dress rehearsals. On Tuesday, it is the same thing. On Wednesday the Bears performed for LPSD students at their middle school matinee. On Thursday, they had their long-awaited opening night, then followed by a show on Friday night and two shows on Saturday!
Riley Troy, (11) a Pilgrim ancestor in the show, said that vocal fry was common throughout the cast, but the show must go on. Her mom, a teacher at Palmer Ridge’s English department Ms. Troy, was a choreographer for the first time in years for The Addams family. She said it was enjoyable to be able to work with her mom. “She was going to choreograph my freshman year, Once Upon A Mattress, but I got COVID. I’m really glad she joined this year.”
I asked her about the hardest and what she most disliked the most in the musical and it was unity throughout the whole crew and cast. “There’s a lot of drama and the drama would lead to small inconveniences with people and it was hard for everyone to work together as a group,” she said. I asked Riley about stage fright and it doesn’t bother her because she’s blind on stage. ” Without my glasses, I’m pretty much blind so I can’t see defined facial features. It’s really hard to see if someone is looking at me and that helps with stage fright… I can see the people watching me but they’re faceless.”
The other challenge that Mr. Belk mentioned other than the amount of dance, was the amount of scenes they had to make. Jayna Patrick (12), a previous crew member and a cast member this year, was props wrangler for Puffs and The Little Mermaid, and the assistant stage manager for Anne of Green Gables. This year, she auditioned for fun and was cast as a cavewoman ancestor. Being on the crew came easy to Jayna because she has always been creative and able to crafty. To be able to be in a crew, you have to be able to come up with solutions and ideas for problems.
Since being on the cast, Jayna has felt that the gap between the crew and the cast has closed. “Sometimes I feel like an enforcer, ‘like put that down’, ‘I’m just a stupid actor’,” she said, but she has gained respect for both sides of the stage, cast, and crew, and wants to respect both. In The Addams Family, the props seemed to add to making the musical come to life. Although it is common to see two-story props, it is advanced for high-school theater to have two-story props. Jayna mentioned that having a crew and cast is very important together, “having just a crew is like a museum, and having just a cast is a bunch of people on a stage playing pretend.”
A thespian is an actor or an actress. “The Thespian Society is like the honor society of the theatre world,” said Bella Pemberton. Bella is president of the drama club and a member of Colorado Thespian Society. To be inducted into the Thespian Society, you have to achieve 10 letter points. Being the president of the drama club and in theater, she is a part of the Thespian Society. I asked her how she was able to balance being in shows and drama club president and she responded, ” It takes a lot of planning ahead, a lot of give and take, and you can’t give a 100% to everything at once.” That being said Bella Pemberton is also our newspaper editor, she knows all about balance!
Seeing the show was very comical and enjoyable. Every joke in the script was enjoyed by the audience and people had a good time watching the strange story write itself. The Addams Family was a very good show produced by the Bear Necessity Theater Production this year even after all the challenges they had to overcome.
