“The Addams Family” Visits St. Augustine

Entire cast of “The Addams Family.” Photo by Renee Unsworth.

By Lea Hervey | gargoyle@flagler.edu

Start snapping your fingers, the Limelight Theatre is introducing “The Addams Family,” a musical that took center stage on Sept. 19 and will run through Oct. 19.

The show features novelists Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, who also wrote the book for the Broadway musical “Jersey Boys,” as well as music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa.

In addition to the talent behind the scenes, the show also features many gifted performers, including Flagler College’s own theater arts professor Andrea McCook, who will be starring as supporting character Alice Beineke.

Andrea McCook (left) as Alice Beineke. Photo by Renee Unsworth

Andrea McCook began her acting career as a teenager with the company ‘TheatreWorks’ before going on to receive her B.A. in theatre at the University of Santa Clara. Later on she was accepted into the NYU Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts.

She began teaching in a private studio in New York before moving to St. Augustine in 1991, where she became a full-time professor at Flagler College in 1997. Since then she has been teaching as well as assisting in the development of Flagler’s Theatre Arts major.

The Addams Family is the first musical McCook has performed in since ‘Cross and Sword’ in 1991. McCook said her greatest joy in being part of the production “is in working with some very talented people, including some of our current and former students.”

Among the musical’s talented cast are 10-year-old Evan Gray, who plays Pugsley Addams, and 15-year-old Kayla Alvarez, who stars as Wednesday Addams.

Gray has been performing since age six and began acting with Broadway Kid Starz in Jacksonville. Since then he has performed in several musicals at venues in and around St. Augustine. After his last performance with the Addams Family on Oct. 19, Gray will join the cast of ‘A Christmas Story: The Musical.’

Kayla Alvarez as Wednesday Addams. Photo by Renee Unsworth

Gray’s co-star, Alvarez, starred in her first performance at age eight in her hometown of Eustis, Fla. She now performs professionally at the Orlando Repertory Theatre. When asked what advice she could give to fellow young aspiring actors/actresses, Alvarez replied, “work hard, take classes, and love what you do.”

Tickets for “The Addams Family” musical cost $25 per person. Student tickets are available for $20 per person. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sundays at the Limelight Theatre.

For more information visit limelight-theatre.org.