Community Players of Salisbury to Perform The Addams Family

When: Friday, Oct. 10 at 8 p.m.

Saturday, Oct. 31 at 8 p.m.

Sunday, Nov. 1 at 2 p.m.

Where: Wicomico Senior High School Auditorium

The Community Players of Salisbury will be performing The Addams Family, a musical comedy with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, beginning Friday, Oct. 10 at 8 p.m.

Known as a “magnificently macabre new musical comedy,” The Addams Family was created by Jersey Boys authors Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice & Drama Desk Award winner Andrew Lippa (The Wild Party).

The Addams Family features an original story and every father’s nightmare. Wednesday Addams, also known as the ultimate princess of darkness, has grown up and fallen in love with a sweet, smart young man from a respectable family. The problem is, her parents have never met him.

Wednesday confides in her father and begs him not to tell her mother, leaving Gomez to keep a secret from his beloved wife, Morticia. Everything will change for the whole family on the night they host a dinner for Wednesday’s “normal” boyfriend and his parents.

In this performance directed by Community Players of Salisbury’s Ken Johnson, the cast is packed tight with popular actors and actresses in the Salisbury community. With Pete Evans playing Gomez, Brenna Johnson playing Morticia, Brooke Bennish as Wednesday and Colin Krisulevicz as Pugsley, Johnson expects it to be a smash hit.

“I’m still shaking my head every day going, ‘I’m playing Gomez Addams,'” Evans said. “I’m actually playing one of my heroes. It’s a very humbling and exciting experience.”

Johnson says the group began rehearsing at the end of August.

“This is our first time performing The Addams Family; we usually do a fall musical and we thought this would be pretty cool since Halloween fell on a Saturday,” Johnson said. “Things are going great, we just finished blocking the last scene.”

Johnson says the Community Players are in a new building and this is one of their first performances in which they are able to rehearse with a complete set. The set for this performance was built by David Allen and Bill Vlakowski, Johnson said. All performances of The Addams Family will be at Wicomico Senior High School Auditorium.

Photo: Community Players of Salisbury

Community Players of Salisbury

“Community Players of Salisbury has been around for 78 years. We are one of the oldest community theaters on the East Coast,” said Ken Johnson, a director and member of the Community Players of Salisbury.

The theater got its start in 1937 when a group of 26 charter members had a common goal in mind: bringing culture and entertainment to the Eastern Shore and providing an outlet for people interested in dramatics.

The Recreation Division of the Works Progress Administration organized the Community Players in May 1938. Arthur Richardson was the head of the project and elected Denmead Kolb as the first president. Richardson directed the organization’s first play, The Singapore Spider, in May 1938.

For the next 16 years, the Community Players produced anywhere from two to five shows each season until the momentum changed in 1964. The theater opened the season with the major musical production, Guys & Dolls, which resulted in a major musical production being a part of every season thereafter.

The Community Players now produce three shows within the season, a major musical and two straight shows with an occasional fourth special show added to the season. The group uses different venues in the Wicomico County area including Wicomico Senior High School, Wicomico Junior High School, Parkside High School, James M. Bennett High School, The Community Players Barn, the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center, Atlantic Hotel Ballroom, Salisbury University, Delmar Middle/Senior High School and Guerrieri Hall at Wor-Wic Community College.