It is nearing that time of year when Fossil Ridge High School gets to see their theatre department in musical action. This year the spring musical is The Addams Family. Auditions were back in January as soon as students came back from winter break. Many people auditioned and a lucky 26 people got chosen to creep their way into this musical comedy. A common misconception of this musical is that it’s a dark, heavy show similar to Frankenstein. This is not the case. Addams Family the musical is a comedy and is actually based more on the cartoon from the 90’s. The musical focuses on Wednesday Addams. She is grown and assumed to be out of college but still very connected and close with her family. She falls in love with a ‘normal’ boy named Lucas and when it comes time to meet the parents, Wednesday asks for one normal night from her crazy family. One night when her family isn’t their morbid, crazy, far from normal selves. Of course the family tries for Wednesday’s sake, but they don’t know the first thing about being normal. On the other hand, Lucas’s family has never seen anything quite like the Addams family and while Lucas is willing to overlook the strange things that they do his parents are not so inclined. The story goes on from there and is an entertaining experience for the audience. There is no doubt that the Fossil theatre department will make it their own and blow us away.

The cast is made up of 26 talented people. The director of this production, Mrs. Kochis says that after working with the cast of West Side Story (51 students) last year this year is very different. There was a lot of deliberation that went into the characters being chosen. Kochis says that working with a cast of this size is interesting. Harvey had a cast of six people which makes for a very close family feel, and then there was West Side where the cast created a family of it’s own where the directors didn’t have to do much. Now she has a cast about the size of her english classes. According to Kochis, “The Addams Family for TV and film are rated the best family because they have such strong family values about sticking with each other and helping each other through their problems and loving each other through their ugly things and through thick and thin and that’s such a huge core part about Addams.” It will be interesting to see how the Fossil family portrays the Addams family.

The set for Addams Family is going to be a lot of work. Students will see a re appearance of some of the set pieces from Harvey as the tech crew builds a new set which hasn’t been done in a number of years. Last year Fossil had the privilege of seeing the Candlelight dinner theatre’s West Side Story set on the stage. The past few productions including Our Town and Frankenstein were minimalistic sets so it will be interesting to see a Fossil constructed set again. Although nothing is for sure yet some of the unique and super amazing goals include moving stair cases and interacting pictures. They are planning on using projections and a lot of them.

Not only will the cast and crew get to show off their skills to their peers but also to some judges as well. People have heard of the Oscars and the Tonys, but did you know there is a high school version of that? It’s called the Bobby G awards. After West Side Story last year Kochis submitted the application to be considered. Fossil got picked out of the 30 applications to be considered for the Bobby G award. If the judges like the show Fossil students they will be nominated and it’s not just the cast that could be nominated that also includes tech. Assuming Fossil gets nominated they will attend a ceremony on May 25. They will have a panel of judges watching all their shows.

Kochis would like to see students come and support the amazing cast and crew “That’s the point of theatre, we don’t have live theatre in order to duplicate it. That’s why you can watch a movie or re-run. We do live theatre so that it’s always different and unique for our audience and to the people who are in it.”