I am uncomfortable with my 18 year-old daughter playing a sexually frustrated middle-aged woman who, in many stagings, crawls on all fours on a dinner table. This would be D’s last school musical, and it seems like an unfortunate way to end her high school career. I don’t see a lot of artistic merit to the play. D does not want to be perceived as a “quitter” but is not happy with the role. Any thoughts about how to proceed?
My D has played many characters that have made me (or my husband, or her grandparents) uncomfortable. She’s been assaulted, murdered, and made the worst possible life choices… onstage. It’s part of the gig. No one gets to be the girl next door every time. One of my favorite comments came from my dad when D was playing Maureen in Rent Senior year (who crawled around on quite a few things). During a scene with Joann, Dad turned to me and said “well, I got used to her kissing Boys onstage, I guess I will have to work on getting used to girls too.”. And just wait - It gets MUCH edgier in college… (my D did Antigone this past fall- DANG that was some dark heavy stuff…)
The Addams Family having artistic merit… well, that’s a matter of personal taste, (I love the show, and my School is about to do it). I can tell you that it is currently well up the list of the top 10 shows being done by HS these days.
i say suck it up, and see where the show goes. Sometimes a role you think you hate, can become something you love. If this is her 1st time not liking her role…She’s been incredibly lucky, and it’s going to happen a LOT. Without knowing anything about your kid. I think she is more likely to regret leaving than staying.
Just my 2cents
This is a great and funny role!!! I wouldn’t quit unless it is a conflict with college auditions. I don’t think it’s unfortunate at all.
My advice is to not quit the role/production. I don’t know this specific role, but in this field, when you audition, you should be willing to accept any role. Quitting over casting is a bad precedent, at least in educational theater. In professional theater, you can opt to not take a job.
Anyway, in my view, a role like this one stretches your daughter in acting…to play someone unlike herself. It sounds like she could do a lot with this role.
Keep in mind that your daughter is going to be stretched in college. My daughter has played all types of roles…prostitutes, simulated sex on stage playing a 12 year old, an elderly person, etc. This is part of the territory.
I don’t quite understand saying that the Adams Family musical is a play that doesn’t have merit? It is a popular musical that many high schools produce and so I would think it has merit, even if not your particular taste in musicals.
Also, would she prefer to end her high school show career on the sidelines or being part of the group of theater kids doing their last high school show?
Just my thoughts.
My D played Alice her Junior year and loved it. I had no problems with it because she is acting and the vocal part is quite difficult. She nailed it. My D had a blast.
I’ve seen several productions of Addams (including one where my son played Mal). Some of the Alices got the humor (yes some is dark–this is the darkly funny Addams family) and some didn’t. I happen to really enjoy the show (even though one of the productions killed the joy in the entire production) and it’s up to your daughter to find the artistry in the role, besides the enjoyment and learning of the ensemble-building process of putting on a high school show.
We really enjoy Addams and if played well Alice is one of the funniest characters in the whole show. As others said, your D may very well end up playing all sorts of characters, that is part of the way this job works. Not unfortunate at all for an actor.
My daughter has also been cast in roles with questionable morality, but she tries to learn something from each experience. I would think of it as a learning opportunity and encourage her to play the part!
My son has died of AIDs a couple of times, of gut-shot once, been suspended from the ceiling during a monologue for another, been a wife-beating fundamentalist, a lover infected with plague…I see him afterwards and he’s happy and fine, which is all that matters to me.
^^^there was a summer where none of my children’s characters survived their shows 
For me, That was the most memorable and funniest character from the show…maybe it was the actress that made it so. I can be fairly conservative and don’t remember being offended.
I know I already responded…but one more thought…
Remember, this is ACTING…the actor is not agreeing with the morality of the character. They are portraying a character. I am a college counselor and it so happens that I just worked on an application essay with a student of mine who does theater but isn’t pursuing theater in college and in one part of his essay, he grapples with how difficult it was to play a Nazi in a show he did, and how he grew from that experience in all sorts of ways. That’s really what it is about. An actor can’t and doesn’t always play characters similar to their own selves in any way shape or form. I think it is a compliment to your D that the director cast her to play a role unlike her own self, which means she has faith in her talent to pull it off. No audience member is going to think your D possesses these traits or agrees with anything the character does.
Not a huge fan of that show either. I want to shoot myself when I hear “Pulled”! But, Alice is a great part-she can steal the show. Getting the tone and timing for comedy is harder than it looks. It’ll be a good learning experience.
Great advice from everyone!
The only time I asked my daughter not to do a role was when she was cast in Hair in college which would have involved nudity. I’m not a prude but other things were going on at the time that I won’t go into here, but bottom line, we asked her not to do it. Some of my theater-mom friends thought I was wrong, and of course now that she is out of school she can audition for anything she wants, but I still believe it was the best decision at the time. The only other time she turned down a role was when she was in middle school and auditioned for Into The Woods at a local children’s theater. I guess they had so many kids audition that they decided to only put high schoolers in Into The Woods, and created another show for the younger kids called Out Of The Woods. She did not know they would do this when she auditioned. My daughter was cast in Out Of The Woods, but declined. (Into the Woods was one of her favorite shows and she was dying to do it.) We agonized over it a bit because she didn’t want to look like a prima donna, but decided it was justified because she did not know going in that they would be casting anything but Into The Woods, and had she known the younger kids would be put in a different show, she wouldn’t have auditioned. In general, it is frowned upon to turn down a show you have auditioned for just because you don’t like the role you get, unless you have specified up front that you are only auditioning for a specific role. For the most part, for theater kids, any role is a good learning experience.
Alice is an awesome part, and congrats to your daughter for getting cast as her!
Sometimes it’s good to be uncomfortable in the parts we play. I think your daughter should just go for it and embrace it and go full out. She might have the time of her life being able to play such a funny character! And worst case scenario, she feels uncomfortable doing the part, but it’ll be over in a few months. At least she’ll get a lot of laughs and be able to spend time with her friend her senior year!
My daughter was cast in a female lead role senior year in their musical. She did not like the show and did not like the part… or so she thought. She was disappointed as she wanted her school to do another show and they chose one she didn’t like for her senior yr. but of course she did it as she went to an arts high school & denying it wasn’t an option anyway. Plus it was senior year and she had preconceived notions of what her senior yr should look like and this part was NOT it.
She ended up really liking her part and we all totally saw afterward why she was cast as this role. It fit her perfectly but we only saw that after the whole thing got going. She still talks about it and how much she enjoyed playing it.
So… your daughter , and you, may be pleasantly surprised once the whole show gets going as to how much she ends up liking it.
I agree, I like Addams Family. I’ve seen it more then once in varying degrees of professional theater and some schools and tons of schools are
doing it now and … full disclosure… that is the show my daughters school was SUPPOSED to do last year! Lol …they lost the rights as they didn’t apply for them in time and another local theatre locked them and so her school had to do something else.
Lol, “full disclosure.” I saw what you did there.
Be glad they’re not doing Heathers - I’m generally pretty open minded, but I think if my daughter had to do “Dead Girl Walking”, I’d likely turn red in embarrassment, or turn my head away. It almost makes me wince if I hear her sing it at home. (Oh, she met Barrett Wilbert Weed - the original Veronica from Heathers the Musical - a month back at Mean Girls in DC). I’ve seen Addams Family a few times at local high schools and it’s been a fun show that’s gone over well with the audiences. It’s also a comedy, so the parts are played for humor, not some R rated teen sex romp.
