JIM HENDRICKS: ‘The Addams Family’ a lively end to Theatre Albany season

Theatre Albany wrapped up its season Sunday with a nice-sized Father’s Day crowd for the musical “The Addams Family.”

I was happy to see it — both the play and the crowd.

In fact, there were bigger ones during the play’s two weeks, including a sell-out on the final Friday night. The seven-performance run, Director Mark Costello said Tuesday, rivaled season leader “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” which was performed in December, in terms of attendance.

“It was neck and neck with ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,’” Costello said.

If you missed “The Addams Family,” you missed a good one. The cast put the fun in dysfunctional family. Chris Hendley, in particular, owned Gomez Addams in all of his hot cold-bloodedness, and Debbie Calek Drury certainly brought Morticia to life, as it were. Haygan Muse was perfectly teenagerly maniacal as Wednesday, and Jack Parks, who sacrificed real-life hair and mustache as Fester, would’ve made the late Jackie Coogan roll over in his grave, but in a good way. The whole cast was strong.

Still, I was a little surprised the show drew as well as it did. School’s out with people vacationing, there weren’t a lot of kids in it to draw in parents and relatives, and the Addams Family has always seemed, to me at least, to be pretty quirky, something of an acquired taste.

Costello said he didn’t have any doubts it would draw an audience, but even he sounded a bit surprised that it competed with “Christmas Pageant” for putting people in the seats.

“I thought it would do well,” he said. “I guess there’s still a lot of folks who remember the films (with Raul Julia and Angelica Houston as Gomez and Morticia) and the older crowd remembers the TV show (with John Astin and Carolyn Jones). We were very gratified.”

Both plays had big casts, which helps. “Best Pageant,” which sold out its Sunday matinees, however, had the added advantage of having a large number of kids in it, a natural attraction for parents, grandparents and other relatives to attend.

Costello said interest in “The Addams Family” was strong from the get-go.

“The first Friday, it took off,” he said. “Saturday is usually a low attendance night. I’m not sure why people don’t like to go on Saturdays. But the first Saturday (the low for the play’s run) was still a large Saturday for us.”

The second week, Saturday and Sunday sales started picking up around Thursday.

It certainly was an upbeat end to a fine season that included some memorable performances, including the world premiere last fall of Ed Salas’ comedy mystery “The Curse of the Blue Monkey.”

“We hope we can keep it up,” Costello said.

And that is what it will take to keep the curtain coming up at the Pine Avenue theater. Like most arts programs, Theatre Albany is always struggling to generate funds. As Costello noted from the stage Sunday, buying tickets, especially season tickets, goes a long way toward financial stability.

The schedule for the 2017-18 season hasn’t been locked down as far as dates, but the slate of shows was handed out this weekend: “Carnival,” “Harry Connick Jr.’s The Happy Elf,” “Dancing Lessons,” “Rumors” and “Legally Blonde,” with the first two and the finale all musicals.

Folks always talk about having nothing to do in Albany, but if you stayed at home and fiddled with your smartphone or watched the boob tube — even if you were catching an old “Addams Family” rerun — you missed an experience that is gone forever. Theater, like any live performance, is unique. No two performances are exactly the same.

Local arts programs — Theatre Albany, the Albany Symphony Orchestra, the Albany Chorale and others — are in their summer downtime until this fall when new seasons start. The only way to ensure those seasons continue to start every fall is to buy tickets.

I made it a point to attend as many performances of the organization’s as I could this past season, and I plan to do the same this next season for two reasons.

First, it makes you feel good to support these arts groups and help ensure their survival.

Second — and I can’t stress this enough — I enjoyed every minute of it.

Email Jim Hendricks at [email protected]. Follow @ABH_JHendricks on Twitter.