Trina Beck on Morticia, “The Addams Family” and being a secret weirdo (podcast)

Trina Beck is, in the words of playwright Jim Fitzmorris, a secret weirdo. But as Rivertown Theaters for the Performing Arts mounts the Broadway musical “The Addams Family” for its run (through Nov. 22), the secret’s out.

“I’m a Kander & Ebb girl, and they’re shows tend to be darker themed,” she told me before a run-through last week, noting her playing Sally Bowles in “Cabaret” awhile back.

(Related: “The Addams Family” preview in the New Orleans Advocate)

Check out the podcast of the interview, and also check out her top five weirdo countdown, which she’s brought to life for Halloween on occasion as her photos above show.  You can also listen to my podcast interview with Gary Rucker, and watch Madison Kerth rehearse as Wednesday, singing “Pulled.” (Click here for ticket info.)

5. “Woman in Black,” Rivertown Theaters, 2006 — “This was my first show at Rivertown. Gary Rucker and Sean Patterson broke from their usual comedy-duo mold for this super spooky play, which only lists two actors in the program. It was too much fun to lurk backstage in a dark corner and scare the crap out of Gary or Sean when they came offstage.”
4. “Corpse Bride,” Halloween, 2005 — “A new Tim Burton movie was one of the highlights of my post-Katrina life in exile. I also had enough time to make myself this costume.”
3. Lydia Deetz, “Beetlejuice,” Halloween 2013 — “It suddenly dawned on me that I had never done a Beetlejuice costume, and that Lydia would not be tough to pull off. (Next year I’m determined to go as Miss Argentina.)”
2. Sally, “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” Halloween 2006 — “Things were still pretty slow in NOLA a year after the flood, so I had time to sew this costume completely by hand.”
1. Morticia!

“The Addams Family” at Rivertown Theaters kicks off a series of articles for the New Orleans Advocate (podcast)

Very excited about being given the opportunity to contribute to the New Orleans Advocate, which starts in Thursday’s (Nov. 5) Beaucoup section with three — count ’em, three — features spanning a nice little spectrum of entertainment.

But the most exciting opportunity of all was a chance to preview Rivertown Theaters’ production of the Broadway musical adaptation of “The Addams Family,” directed by Gary Rucker and starring Trina Beck as Morticia and Johnny Lee Missakian as Gomez.

While I was working on the feature I got a chance to interview both Gary Rucker and Trina Beck about the musical, which has an interesting history and required a pretty shrewd production strategy. Check out this podcast of the interview with Rucker (below). I’ll have the Trina Beck interview up later today, hopefully.

Also check out my previews of the 26th Mirliton Festival in Bywater, and “Sesame Street Live” at UNO Lakefront Arena.