Entering the spooky spirit while helping others, Morton West has produced an Addams Family play!

On Friday, November 11th, Morton West hosted their Adams Family Dinner & Theater night. All the proceeds from the night went towards the Pay It Forward Scholarship Fund. The Pay It Forward Scholarship Fund is a scholarship for students. The scholarship fund successfully raised an amount of $5,845! The ticket price to attend was $100 and that included the dinner as well as the play. The dinner was a four-course meal inspired by the Adams Family play and was prepared by Morton Culinary Arts students. It also started at 5 pm and ended at 10 pm. About 56 tickets were sold and 43 people attended. Although we did not attend their Dinner & Theater night, we did attend their other only theater showing and it was a wonderful evening.  

In a random survey of 28 Morton East theater students, most of them said that their favorite parts were at the end when Fester gets on the rocket to be with the moon.  

In the Addam’s Family, even the special ensemble dancers were excited to give some input on their perspective on the play. 

“I think it’s a lot of fun. I love dancing; dancing is my favorite thing to do, so I was very excited to get to be in dance ensemble because I get to dance with a lot of my friends.” Junior dance ensemble, Chloe Nelson said. 

Although sometimes it was not a main goal to be part of the main roles, it was still good to be part of the performance. 

“I didn’t really have a role that I wanted coming into it- I just wanted to be in the show.” Chloe Nelson continued. 

It was a long process, and it paid off to have this show end up coming together as it did. 

“It took ten weeks- we started auditions in late August and now we are in like the second week of November, so it’s been a very long process, but it has been a lot of fun. I think all of the hard work is definitely paying off.” Chloe Nelson says. 

Even crew was very thrilled to have been a part of this production. 

“It’s been pretty exciting. 10 weeks ago, I definitely did not expect it to look like this. It is very chaotic. Senior stage crew, David Gonzalez said. 

 Making a mention that there is a shared role in enjoying being a part of stage crew. 

“I know they do a lot of last-second changes recently, and I’m just like, ‘I don’t know how I feel about this.’” My favorite part, I think, is that I’m so far out of view and I can kinda mimic the actors in the light booth, and it’s just fun trying to mimic the dancers.” David Gonzalez said jokingly. 

Sometimes the crew does not have only one job, but share the tasks amongst each other, although specifically assigned to certain people. 

“I help build the set as well, but mainly lighting. It’s fun!” David Gonzalez continues. 

The environment was very friendly and pleasant for both the cast and crew. Another dance ensemble shares these joyous moments. 

“I like the singing and dancing part because it’s really fun. And I also like the cast because everyone is really nice and sweet. We are like a family.” Sophomore dance ensemble, Rebeca Barbilonia said.  

Behind the scenes is just as important as being on the stage itself. We get a brief follow-up with a fellow crew member who generously describes what they do. 

“I help with sound and running the crew. So, I’m backstage, stage left, and if there’s any packs that are about to die and there are actors coming out from stage left, I take their batteries and replace them.” Junior stage crew, Marcelo Oliveros explained. He was kind enough to give a small tour backstage and show some of the tasks that he did!

As mentioned before, there is a lot of change when it comes to working backstage and it being kinetic between jobs. 

“If I’m not doing that, I help running crew take things on and off stage, I help with props backstage. I also help with curtains, sometimes I do grand, opening and closing them. If somebody needs me somewhere, I can be there. I used to do the gargoyles on and off if the backdrop was coming down, they’d be turned off, but there’s a person for that job.” Marcelo Oliveros continued.

For a dark and odd family onstage, the cast and crew were very warm and kind to their audience.