Students and OCUStripped leaders are preparing for the upcoming production of The Addams Family musical.
OCUStripped is a student-run organization that performs musicals with minimal technical elements. Dr. David Herendeen, professor of music and director of opera and music theater, is the organization’s sponsor.
“The students provide the props. The students provide the costumes. It’s student music-directed. It’s basically taking musicals and stripping them down, which is the basis of the name, and we put them up in three weeks,” said Megan Carpenter, music theater senior and artistic director of OCUStripped.
The original production of The Addams Family musical premiered in Chicago in 2009. The music and lyrics were composed by Andrew Lippa, and the book was written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice.
The “Addams family” consists of “Gomez,” “Morticia,” “Wednesday,” “Pugsley,” “Grandma,” “Uncle Fester,” “Lurch,” and a disembodied hand referred to as “Thing.”
Anna Lasbury, music theater senior, plays the role of “Grandma” in the production.
“It’s basically a twisted love story where two very different families collide, and the night that they spend together just kind of unfolds in many crazy ways,” she said.
Due to the stripped-down nature of the performance, Teresa Franks, music theater senior and director of the production, said the team had to brainstorm ways to pull off some of the absurd elements people may expect from The Addams Family.
“I think the ensemble will play a huge part in it, too, in creating the magic or the spectacle of whatever we need,” she said. “Our artistic director Megan says that it’s problem solving, and that’s what Stripped is.”
Cole Cloutier, music theater senior and choreographer of the production, said there were some line changes to keep the script updated, and some technically demanding elements can’t be done.
“It definitely will be ‘OCUStripped presents The Addams Family,’ not The Addams Family, but in the best way possible, and I’m very excited for it,” he said.
Carpenter said part of the organization’s reasoning in choosing The Addams Family was the variety of opportunities and roles available in the show, and its deviation from mainstage shows.
“I think it’s super important in an educational setting to taste and to play around and experience all different types of theater,” she said.
OCUStripped produces shows with a minimal budget, so donations will be accepted at the doors.
Nick Atkins, music theater sophomore playing “Gomez,” said he found the minimalism of OCUStripped interesting.
“It’s really cool to see how each director of each different show experiments with the lack of budget, because, I mean, we’re performers. We’re not going to have shows with multi-thousand-dollar budgets to have amazing sets and technical pieces to the show, so it’s really cool to see everything come together with so few pieces,” he said.
Performances will be at 8 p.m. Feb. 1-2 in the Petree Recital Hall in Kirkpatrick Fine Arts Center.
Leave a Reply