If the ooky-spooky folks on stage in GreenMan Theatre’s latest outing look familiar, it’s by design. The quirky McAddams family is led by Tish, a long, lean beauty with waist-length raven hair and a love for body-hugging black gowns. Her husband is G’mez, a dashing gent who favors funereal black suits. They have a daughter named Nessie, a son named Puggles, a hirsute Cousin Zitt and a cue-ball headed jester of an uncle. The McAddamses share their home with a butler who lurches about like a latter-day Frankenstein and a bodiless, one-handed helper named Thang.
“I’ve always loved the Addams Family cartoons. I thought it would be fun to write a murder mystery inspired by them,” says writer/director Carolyn Thomas-Davidoff of the inspiration for “The McAddams Family: Spring Break!”‘
Davidoff’s musical murder mystery, a benefit for the theatre, takes its cues from the Addams Family of cartoonist Charles Addams, as well as the 1964-66 television show based on those cartoons and the movie treatments that followed. The plot follows daughter Nessie who brings home a fiance and the McAddamses struggle to win over the young man’s preppy/normal family.
Davidoff veers from previous efforts by inserting a murder into “The McAddams Family,” and by introducing characters not found in any of the previous Addams incarnations: Nessie brings home a squad of sorority sisters and Puggles has a girlfriend named after a poisonous mushroom.
Davidoff says the biggest challenge in penning the show was making sure the characters stayed true to the originals that inspired them — without running afoul of copyright law. A relative who is an entertainment attorney helped with that, she said.
“McAddams Family” isn’t Davidoff’s first run at adding murderous shenanigans into riffs on prominent pop culture families. She’s previously taken on “Downton Abbey” (“Doubtful Abbey: Murder and Mayhem”) and “The Brady Bunch” (“A Very Grady Murder”) for GreenMan. As with its predecessors, the “McAddams Family” plot is timed around the multi-course dinner served to the audience. The evening starts with cocktails and a chance to mingle with the cast. It closes with dessert and denouement.
The cast includes Diane Connelly, a Berwyn school nurse who spends the show underneath a table. One of her hands plays Thang, the other is Cleo, a man eating plant. “They both have emotions. They get surprised and scared and happy at times. They comfort each other after the murder,” she says.
The show is preceded by a “schmooze” hour, where audience members can met the cast and make their guess as to who the murderer is. After the big reveal, prizes will be awarded to those who guessed right.
More Top Picks Xiaomi Mi Band 7
“The whole point is just to have fun,” Davidoff said.
GreenMan Theatre Troupe’s ‘The McAddam’s Family: Spring Break!’
When: Feb. 24-25, March 3-5
Where: Angelo’s Ristorante and Banquets, 247 N. York St., Elmhurst
Tickets: $50 (includes dinner)
Contact: 630-464-2646; www.greenmantheatre.org