Broadway will soon see an Addams Family musical based on…well, they'll probably make a big deal of it being based on the classic cartoons of Charles Addams. But when you call it The Addams Family and you have characters named Gomez and Morticia and Uncle Fester, as they will, you're really doing the TV show based on the classic cartoons of Charles Addams. I dunno if the proprietors have merged them but a few years ago, those were two separate properties. You could buy the rights to the work of Mr. Addams, as some did for some project, only to discover you couldn't use all the characters and situations and running gags invented for teevee. The folks doing this musical seem to have the whole package to draw upon.
And they have a great cast, starting with Nathan Lane as Gomez and Bebe Neuwirth as Morticia. Can't do better than that…though one wonders if the legs and dance skills of Ms. Neuwirth will be going to waste since Morticia just isn't that kind of girl. The most interesting casting to me is hearing that Jackie Hoffman, the funniest woman I've ever seen on a Broadway stage, will be playing Grandmama.
You can find out more about it at the show's website. Right now, they're planning on previewing in Chicago in November, moving to New York the following March and opening on Broadway on April 8. I'm going to keep an eye on this one because it sounds like a good idea with good people.