High School Brings Ookiest, Kookiest Family to Kodiak

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky. They’re altogether ooky. It’s the Addams Family – the musical.

Kodiak High School Theater Arts is tackling the Broadway production, which is based on the world of the morbid, yet endearing, Addams family.

Fans of the TV show from the 1960s, the movies from the 1990s, or the comic strips might be familiar with the mustached Gomez, the vampy Morticia and their two kids, Pugsley and Wednesday.

Director Wes Hanna says the musical focuses on Wednesday, who’s on the verge of getting married and has invited some “normal people” into the Addams family home.

That’s where the conflict comes in and, as Hanna describes, it’s a largely relatable situation.

“It’s neat to contrast this normal family and the Addams family and all of the things that happen after that. We’ve got these two families coming together much like our country is trying to come together. We’ve got a really conservative family, we’ve got a very liberal family, and how do we put these two families together?”

He says the musical is also about the more immediate family and the relationship between Wednesday and her father as Wednesday moves onto the next stage of her life.

While he plays the role of director, Hanna says the students had a lot of input.

“Especially the dancing portions of the musical. There’s a lot of dancing that’s going on in this musical too, which is a lot of fun. But the students came up with their own choreography, which was really neat to see. This group of students is very self-motivated to work on the musical.”

The production runs three times until Sunday. The first performance will be 7 p.m. on Friday in the Gerald C. Wilson Auditorium.