Saguaro City brings creepy and kooky 'Addams Family' to Tucson stage

This weekend, it will have 63 for "The Addams Family."

"We learned a valuable lesson with 'Shrek' that we could do 61," said Saguaro City Artistic Director Drew Humphrey.

But what is more exciting for Managing Director Dena DiGiacinto is that 40% of those kids have a declared diagnosis of physical, learning or behavioral disabilities or issues.

"Part of our mission is to make sure kids get to participate without barriers," she said during a break in rehearsals at the University of Arizona's Tornabene Theatre. "That's the wonderful part of our program to make sure all of the kids feel like they can perform."

The cast for "The Addams Family" came from the 4-year-old theater company's summer camp, an intensive three-week program that puts the campers through all aspects of musical theater — choreography, acting and music — to prepare them for the performance.

Many of those kids are cast in the ensemble; 22-year-old Leif Van Den Berg landed the role of Thing, the disembodied hand that lends a hand (pun intended) when needed.

Thing is in the inner circle of the creepy and kooky Addams family: mom Morticia Addams (Leila Rose); dad Gomez (Jose "Chach" Snook); Uncle Fester (Ian Bramhill); Lurch (Reese Hedgepeth); Grandma (Daisy Williamson) and the kids, Wednesday (Penelope Paschke-Wood) and Pugsley (Max Bright Morgan).

During that UA rehearsal in early June, Penelope and Max rehearsed a scene where Wednesday ties Pugsley to a chair and rolls him around the stage in a menacing way. The whole cast, half of whom are under 18 years old, looked on as Wednesday jerked her brother around in the chair as he tried to loosen the ropes.

This is the third Saguaro City play for both Penelope and Max, but it's the first time the pair have been cast in a lead role. And both come to the show with fresh eyes; although they are familiar with the animated version of the show and the film version, neither had seen the musical before auditions began in early June. 

Even in his street clothes, Max struck the spitting image of the quintessential Pugsley, the annoying little brother who can't get out of his own way. During an interview on the third day of rehearsals two weeks ago, he eyeballed a bag of candy on a nearby bookshelf and gestured toward the bag, as if he was going to help himself.

Penelope, sitting next to him, shot him a stern big sister glare that said "Don't even think about it!" and for an instant, it was easy to mistake the pair for real-life siblings.

"We've already had people in the show, other kids, come up to us and say that we're giving off sibling energy," said Penelope, whose real-life little sister is in the play.

Penelope, a rising sophomore at University High School, said the character of Wednesday bears no resemblance to any of the characters she has played in the past.

"I always play happy, more upbeat characters and so it's very new for me trying to be the complete opposite of my actual personality," she said of the gothlike Wednesday, who has a morbid sense of humor and unhealthy obsession with the macabre. "I feel like this is an opportunity for me to figure out how to branch off of just the same things that I've done over and over and actually not be like the happy, super confident kind of character that I usually play."

Playing Pugsley is no stretch for Max, who is going into the eighth grade at the downtown charter school Paulo Freire Freedom School. Pugsley's personality on stage accurately mirrors his own, he said.  

"A huge percent of it comes from me," he said, minus the older sibling interaction; he has a little brother from whom he is taking some cues on how to be a pain in the butt to an older sib. "I've never had an older sibling before — and I probably never will have — so I don't really have a good understanding of what it is to be an older sibling."

In "The Addams Family" musical, Wednesday is all grown up and wants to marry Lucas Beineke, a perfectly "normal" young man who Wednesday fears will not take to her creepy, kooky family. She begs her father Gomez to keep her impending engagement secret from her mother Morticia, but when it comes to Morticia, Gomez gets weak in the knees.

When the eccentric Addamses host a dinner party for Lucas's conventional parents, chaos ensues, leading to a thorny game of "Full Disclosure" that goes completely awry and threatens to tear up the parents' relationships.

"Everyone can relate to feeling like they're different, or that their family is so different that they would not be able to relate to someone else," Humphrey said of why he chose to stage the musical. "And you've got the Addams Family and Wednesday, who wants to get married to Lucas, and his family, and she wants her family to pretend and be different than they are because there's a fear that they're not going to be accepted, or she's not going to be accepted. I think everyone can relate to being so different or feeling like they're so different that they're unrelatable."

"The Addams Family" runs 90 minutes with two 20-minute intermissions. ADA accommodations will be available for all performances: 3 p.m. Friday, June 26, and 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, June 27-28, at Berger Performing Arts Center, 1200 W. Speedway.

Tickets are $37 for adults, with discounts available for military, seniors and children; kids 17 and under accompanied by a paid adult are $1.50 through saguarocity.org. 

This is Saguaro City's 11th production in four seasons. Its fifth season opens with "Sister Act" Oct. 10-25. Its winter performance of Disney's "The Little Mermaid" runs from Dec. 19-Jan. 3, 2027. "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" is on stage March 13-27.