Top Hat invites audience to ‘Addams Family’ dinner

By GUY D’ASTOLFO

dastolfo@vindy.com

Top Hat Productions has made a few changes to the musical “The Addams Family” in order to turn it into a dinner-theater show.

Titled “Dinner With the Addams Family,” the show – which opens Saturday – is largely the same as the one that premiered on Broadway in 2010. But Top Hat has altered it to fit its vision.

“We got written permission to tweak the musical to allow it to be a dinner-theater, so that [audience members] are the guests at the Addams mansion,” said Brian Palumbo, who is directing. “All of the music is the same, and most of the plot is, too. But there is a lot of interaction with the audience, and a lot of the play happens in the round.”

Usually at Top Hat dinner-theater productions, the audience eats first and then watches the play, with dessert served at intermission.

But in “Dinner With the Addams Family,” the meal is part of the musical. “The characters are serving you dinner,” said Palumbo. “You are a guest of the Addams family.”

Top Hat first set its sights on a dinner-theater production of “The Addams Family” when the musical premiered.

“We did it about five years ago as a pilot, for one weekend with very little marketing, just to see if it would work,” said Palumbo. “It took a lot of paperwork to get the rights changes to do what we wanted to do. We wanted to make sure it was a winner before we put it out as a full musical.”

Palumbo said the stage show is written in the same style of ghoulish humor as the television series. “If you appreciated ‘The Addams Family,’ you will appreciate this show,” he said.

The television show’s theme song began with the phrase “They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky,” and the description still holds true for the Top Hat production.

The cast is led by Julie Palumbo as Morticia Addams, and Ezekiel Ellis as her devoted husband, Gomez. The ghoulish couple have thrown a dinner party for their ancestral guests at their gloomy mansion.

Rounding out the cast of the family are Ethan Montoya as their son, Pugsley, and Julie DeSalvo as their daughter, Wednesday; Delaney Malley is Grandmama; Tylor Zuniga is Uncle Fester; and Dustin Miles is Lurch.

Portraying ancestors are Jessica Berg, MaryCatherine Borsic, Aftyn Bugos, Howard Curlin, Greg Endsley, Rachel Franek, Robert Jolliff (“Thing”), Heather Jones, Monique Jordan, Ashton Lee, TaeShawn Madison, Sade Poindexter, Brittany Storey, Riley Storey, Anthony Villa and Rebecca Williams.

The show will be presented at Fairview Arts and Outreach Center, 4220 Youngstown- Polland Road, Youngstown. Additional performances will be Oct. 16-17, 23-24 and 30. For times and ticket information, call 800-838-3006.