Clockwise from left: Erin Moody, Danny McBride, Ron Gallegos, Jack Litherland, Ekaterina Ivanchov, Adrianne Elkins, and Jude Chavez Stromei Photo by Max Woltman

I'm not sure if this says anything important about America in the mid-1960s, but I do think it says something about American culture that so many members of my boomer generation remember these shows. We might have been forced to read about Hester and Ahab, but we remember Morticia and Gomez and Uncle Fester better. A lot of us can even recall the "Addams Family" theme song. (Fingers snap. Right now, there's a Netflix show called Wednesday. I wonder how many younger people get that the name Wednesday was a take-off on Tuesday Weld, who was popular at the time.

Nostalgia sells tickets and Broadway musicals go on tour, so it's not a big surprise that The Addams Family became a musical, opening on Broadway in 2010. Based on New Yorker cartoons by Charles Addams, the book is by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (they also wrote the book for Jersey Boys) with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa. The show was a box office success and has been performed all over the place since then, including a surprising number of foreign countries. It's Los Locos Addams in Mexico, for example. Our movie and television industry has really sort of Americanized the world.

Why is it so popular? Because it's a really fun show. The dialogue is witty and the lyrics are clever, even if the melodies don't stick with you for long. My favorite gag line: Gomez is looking through a guidebook for the worst hotel in Paris and finds "Hotel Merde, on the rue de Toilette."

The plot is simple enough. The macabre Addams family live in a spooky old mansion hidden somewhere in Central Park. Crossbow-carrying daughter Wednesday meets a boy named Lucas in the park and they fall in love and want to get married; his strait-laced parents come over to meet the Addamses, and everything works out in the end. There are a of couple short scenes that could be cut, and the ten ancestors who are released from their crypt really don't have much to do, but for the most part, the show moves along briskly.

Landmark Musicals' production is top-notch in acting, singing, dancing, set design–pretty much everything. Director Gary Bearly has assembled a wonderful cast and elicited fine performances from them all. I'm constantly amazed at how many multi-talented people we have in New Mexico, both on stage and behind the scenes. They may officially be amateurs, but their work looks awfully professional to me.

Ron Gallegos and Adrianne Elkins perfectly embody Gomez and Morticia, easily making you forget John Astin and Carolyn Jones from the TV show. A revelation is Ekaterina Ivanchov as Wednesday, with powerhouse vocals and acting, and she's still in high school. Jude Chavez Stromei is preternaturally self-assured on stage as Pugsley, considering how young he is. An unrecognizable Jack Litherland (thanks to terrific costume design by Aleah Montano and makeup design by Mary Starr Smith) is an absolute pleasure as Uncle Fester, and Danny McBride is a perfect Lurch.

The so-called "normal" couple, Lucas's parents, are more than ably portrayed by Drew Groves and Kristen Bowers-Nguyen, but it is Kristen who gets to knock one out of the park with a tour-de-force scene after she unintentionally drinks the "acrimonium" potion. Actually, the whole show knocks it out of the park.

The set design by Carrie Tafoya and props by Nina Dorrance, lighting design by Diego Garcia, sound design by Simon Welter, hair and wig design by Kandy Thorn, and stage management by Rachel Brunton all make the production look like something that a limited-budget community theatre company could not possibly pull off. Yet Landmark Musicals, under executive producer Louis Giannini, has done it again.

As always with Landmark, there is a live orchestra in the pit, conducted by Shelly Andes. And since this is a more or less traditional Broadway musical, there has to be dancing, so besides the leads and the ancestors, there is an ensemble of eight talented young dancers, all choreographed very nicely by Courtney and Louis Giannini.

You might assume that people who didn't grow up with the Addams Family on their television set won't enjoy this show as much as if they did, but this musical comedy can stand on its own. Nostalgia not required.

The Addams Family Musical, presented by Landmark Musicals, runs through April 6, 2025, at the Rodey Theatre in the University of New Mexico Center for the Arts, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM. Performances Fridays and Saturdays at 7:00, Sundays at 2:00. For tickets and information, please visit landmarkmusicals.org.