The Addams Family: The Musical (Hayes) ★★★★

Book by Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice. Music & Lyrics by Andrew Lippa. Based on Characters Created by Charles Addams. Presented by Joshua Robson Productions in association with Hayes Theatre Co. Hayes Theatre. 11 Jul – 9 Aug, 2026.

After getting the kind of savage Broadway reviews that would kill most shows, The Addams Family: The Musical went on to live a full life — as is appropriate for the gorgeously gothic sitcom family. But that show had the theatrical firepower of Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth. Can the scrappy scamps at The Hayes deliver the same crowd-pleasing magic, or is this one D.O.A.?

Wednesday Addams (Jenny Guigayoma) has a secret. She’s met a boy named Lucas (Alexander Tye) and fallen in love. When her Uncle Fester (Evan Lever) finds out, he invites Lucas and his parents Mal & Alice (Rory O’Keeffe & Teagan Wouters) over to the Addams’ house for dinner. With Gomez (Marcus Rivera) and Morticia (Erika Heynatz) doing their best to be gracious hosts to the suburban family, Morticia grows suspicious that her family is hiding something from her. When Pugsley (Georgia Oom) decides to pull a prank, awkward truths are revealed and Morticia and Gomez’s undying love is pushed to its limits.

What starts off as a monochromatic take on La Cage Aux Folles — trading gays for goths, and sequins for sarcophagi — finds its feet when it abandons the token plot and lets its “freak flag fly” (to quote Shrek: The Musical). After working its way through a slightly overlong first act that gets bogged down in plot, The Addams Family manages to rise from the grave for a pacy, triumphant second. It’s rare that a show pulls off a Second Coming like this, but The Addams Family holds back all its gems till you’re back from the bar. Woe betide the fool who leaves at the interval — patience really is a virtue.

A relatively harmless but charmless score by Andrew Lippa (The Wild Party, Big Fish) is given life thanks to some stunning production design by Dann Barber, who serves up a cartoonishly memorable set and stunning costumes (cast and crew will be fighting over who gets to keep Morticia’s coat from Act 2). Barber’s designs transform Elliot Aitken’s Lurch into a slow-moving, architectural Transformer, give us a comedically daring reveal for Evan Lever’s Uncle Fester, and make Erika Heynatz tower above the rest, as Morticia surely must.

The unevenness of the score is mirrored in the casting, which ranges from 90% inspired to 10%… well, less so. The core Addams are all excellent, especially Guigayoma and Heynatz, whose vocals bring out the best in the tunes. Pugsley, Wednesday’s malicious younger brother, has been gender-blind cast — a young woman playing a young boy — but Oom’s performance rises above the momentary, pointless distraction. It’s Lever’s Uncle Fester, though, who threatens to steal the show: his subplot may be structurally unnecessary and could easily be cut, but his off-kilter performance is a comedic highlight. The Beinekes, however, suffer in comparison. Teagan Wouters gets a moment to bust loose, but the men in the family suffer from varying vocals and little material to work with.

Fans of the original Addams Family comics (or the 60s TV show, or 70s cartoon, or the 90s films, or the 2020s Netflix series Wednesday) will appreciate all the touchstones — Thing never appears as a character onstage, but is woven in through plenty of smaller nods — though they may be frustrated by the softening of the characters. Musical theatre lovers bemoaning the cancellation of the Beetlejuice tour can at least get their dark and quirky fill here. For the real nerds out there: this production is using the clearer US Tour script, not the Broadway version.

A solidly good first act and a brilliant second make for a bit of a mixed bag, but put together, the result is another winner for the Hayes that sends you out the door with a big smile on your face. The trio of Guigayoma, Heynatz and Lever are all unmissable (Rivera is no slouch either), and I haven’t even raved about the slow-moving surprise hit that is Elliot Aitken’s Lurch. As for Morticia’s coat — it deserves five stars all its own.