Salem Academy Charter Schools Players To Perform 'The Addams Family'

SALEM, MA — For the past nine weeks the Salem Academy Charter School Players have worked hard to bring the characters and the comedy of The Addams Family to life on stage.

This weekend, those who attend one or more of the three performances will get a chance to see the culmination of the effort of the 25 students involved in the program under the direction of Haley Hewson and Maddison Whittington.

Whittington told Patch the students were involved in every aspect of the planning and realization of the performances starting on Jan. 3, including the technical work and finishing stage, light and sound clues.

"We wanted to recreate a spooky family in the heart of the spookiest town in the United States, while also teaching our kids about the structure of musicals and the purpose behind each song," Whittington said.

The performances will run on Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at Salem Academy.

The Addams Family is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and the book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Ellis.

The show is based on the Addams Family characters created by Charles Adams and his single-panel cartoons that depict a ghoulish American family with an affinity for the macabre.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)