Honor Students visited Dallas to attend the Addams Family Musical. Shawn Irish, honors theatre faculty, traveled with 22 students to attend the event. The Addams Family Musical is currently on their United States Tour and with the show being in Dallas, Attebury Honor Students got an opportunity to see the play and visit the state fair.

The Addams Family is inspired by famous cartoonist Charles Addams, whose family of cartoons became iconic, first appearing in The New Yorker magazine in 1938. The cartoons evolved into a televised program on ABC in 1964, became a movie in 1991 and have been used in many promotional ads and merchandise. The tour is revised from the Broadway musical in 2010 and has been traveling since September 2011.

With an encouraged open-minded view of the world, the Honors program used the opportunity to give students a taste of the arts. Many students had little to no prior knowledge of the Addams family before the event.

“I had seen a little bit [of the Addams Family] through the movies…but other than that I didn’t know about it at all,” said Jayci Grantham. “It [the play] was funnier than I expected it to be… I thought it would be all serious but it was hilarious.”

Jesse Potestas, who has some background in theatre enjoyed the show and through discussions with Shawn Irish said the play aligned with his knowledge of the Addams family and was better than the Broadway version.

“The play was very good and true to [original versions of] the Addams Family. Even Mr. Irish who has seen the Broadway play approved,” Potestas said.