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America’s favorite spooky and kooky family will be brought to life over the next two weekends as students from Foothill and Amador Valley high schools get set to perform their annual joint spring musical, “The Addams Family”.
Hannah Davies, Amador Valley drama teacher and artistic director for the show, told the Weekly that the joint musical between the two schools is a longstanding tradition that represents the strong community within the Pleasanton Unified School District.
“It’s not just one school’s musical; it really is like our whole district coming together to do something special,” Davies told the Weekly. “The kids have been working so hard this year.”
According to Davies, a cast of more than 30 students from both schools will be portraying the iconic family as they touch on themes such as celebrating being unique and recognizing the importance of family.
Auditions for the dual high school production first began in November with over 80 students having tried out for a part, Davies said. After settling on the roughly 30 cast members, she said they have spent the past four months rehearsing nonstop.
“We both have incredibly talented student bodies to pull from,” she said.
Now, as the group enters its final week of rehearsal, Davies said her and her fellow eight directors — which she said has been the most directors for the joint event since before the pandemic — have been stepping back in order to let the students shine.
“Our goal for the musical, but especially in these last couple weeks of tech, has really just been for us as directors to step back a little bit and make sure the students have the tools that they need to do their job,” Davies said.
“They are a phenomenally talented group of kids,” she added. “It’s been really fun watching them these past couple weeks as we incorporate the tech elements of the show.”
Davies was referring to what is commonly known as tech week, which is when shows rehearse in a full theater setting that includes props, lighting and music, meaning all of the students working the technical side of things on stage as well as the student orchestra have been busy as well.
She said it has been especially nice to have an extended tech week — usually that is reserved for the final week before opening night — during the past couple of weeks inside the Amador Theater due to the fact that the district now owns the theater once again. PUSD regained the theater after the city transferred ownership rights as part of a deal last September.
Davies said in the past, they would have to rehearse at the multipurpose room at Amador so having the space to practice whenever they want has been really nice.
In fact, one of her favorite moments during the rehearsal process actually came up the other day when she saw the students’ excitement after they rehearsed the finale for the first act with all of the different technical theater elements.
“Everything had come together so perfectly that it really felt like students couldn’t contain themselves,” Davies said. “The first moment where you can really start to see the show as what the final product is going to be … that’s always a really special moment.”
The curtain opens on “The Addams Family” this Friday (March 21) at 7 p.m. Shows continue this Saturday and Sunday and next Friday through Sunday (March 28-30). Tickets and more information on showtimes can be found at pleasantonusd.net.
