'Arts & Entertainment

Music For Morticia

Former Oak Parker helps bring classic
Addams Family characters to Broadway.

Mice Burdick Schweiger

Special to the Jewish News

A

ndrew Lippa is on a roll. Since
graduating from the University
of Michigan in 1987, he has
acted, sung, conducted, composed, played
piano and written numerous musical
scores for the New York stage. Now, The
Addams Family, one
of his biggest creative
endeavors yet, has hit
Broadway.
"I always wanted
to be involved in a
big project and was
excited to be a part of
the show:' says Lippa,
45, who spent about
15 months writing the
Andrew Lippa
music and lyrics.
"[Producer] Stuart Oken had the rights
to turn these characters into a musical; and
when he asked me if I wanted to write the
music and told me Marshall Brickman and
Rick Elice (Jersey Boys) were writing the
book, I said,`Sign me up!"
The Addams Family, which had its pre-
Broadway tryout in Chicago, is based on the
famously ghoulish characters created by leg-
endary cartoonist Charles Addams for the
New Yorker magazine, beginning in 1938.
To make each Addams family member
Broadway-musical ready, Lippa studied
the old cartoons and had to sort out what
each one might sound like. "Each charac-

ter had particular behaviors and habits to
consider;' he says. "And Gomez had to sing
with a flamenco-style Spanish accent."
The dream cast includes Nathan Lane,
Bebe Neuwirth, Jackie Hoffman and
Terrence Mann.
As for working with Lane, Lippa says,
"It's a thrill. Nathan is one of the funni-
est, accomplished actors working in the
theater today. He can play both funny and
heartbreaking, and he gets the opportu-
nity to do both in this show:"
Lippa was born in Leeds, England, and
moved to Oak Park at age 3. His late father,
Ronald, was in sales; and his mother,
Naomi, now retired and living in Florida,
owned a clothing store.
The future composer received his edu-
cation in Oak Park Schools, attending
Pepper Elementary, Frost Middle School
and Oak Park High. At U-M, he earned his
degree in voice and education.
While at Michigan, Lippa and longtime
friend Jeffrey Seller (producer of Rent and
Avenue Q), collaborated on a musical called
Our Heroic Man. Lippa also played the
Jimmy Stewart role in Its A Wonderful Life
and was musical director for Anything Goes
and Gypsy at the Ann Arbor Civic Theater.
After graduation, Lippa moved to New
York City and landed a teaching job at
Columbia Grammar. "I taught there for
four years; and for two of those years,
I was assistant principal of the middle
school;' he says. "When I left that position,
I was 25 and started to make a living by

The cast of The Addams Family, left to right: Adam Riegler, Jackie Hoffman, Krysta
Rodriguez, Nathan Lane, Bebe Neuwirth, Zachary James, Kevin Chamberlin.

playing piano:' Lippa performed at venues
around New York, including Carnegie Hall.
"I worked with Kristin Chenoweth as
her musical director," he says. "I wrote a
new song for her called A Girl Like Me —
half-operatic, half-country — and it had a
fantastic response from the audience!'
Continuing to make a name for himself,
Lippa wrote the music and co-wrote the
book for John & Jen, which had numerous
productions around the country. He wrote
three new songs for a Broadway revival
of You're a Good Man Charlie Brown that
was performed at the Fisher Theatre and
teamed up with Stephen Schwartz for
the film The Prince of Egypt, singing and
doing the vocal arrangements for some
of the songs. His show The Wild Party ran
on Broadway in 2000. As an actor, Lippa
performed in the show Two Pianos, Four
Hands. Most recently, he wrote the music
and lyrics to The Man in the Ceiling, a
book by Jules Feiffer.
Lippa has a strong connection to his
Jewish heritage.
He was in the choir at Congregation
B'nai Moshe (when still at its Oak Park

location), where he became a bar mitzvah;
and he served as a High Holiday cantor in
Vancouver, Canada, for 10 years.
Currently, Lippa is a member of the
Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York
City. He joined with his now-husband,
David Bloch, a marketing executive, whom
he married in 2008 in Los Angeles.
"David is Jewish, too:' says Lippa."In fact,
we had a Jewish wedding and even signed a
ketubah. We go to services for holidays and
sometimes for Shabbat as well:'
Lippa, on the lookout for "sensitive
Jewish material;' began writing a musical
called Jerry Christmas. "It's a story about a
middle-aged Jewish entertainer in 1950s
Hollywood," says Lippa. "He's similar
to Jerry Lewis and Danny Kaye, whose
Jewishness gave them their rhythm and
comic sensibility." For now, however, the
project is put aside while he concentrates
on The Addams Family.
When asked which of his projects he con-
sidered his big break, Lippa had a difficult
time answering. "Part of me feels I haven't
made it yet," he says. "Which is a good thing
— it keeps me working really hard." ❑

Jews

Nate Bloom

Special to the Jewish News

Magnetic Man

Iron Man, which opened in 2008, was
a critical and box-office smash. The
sequel, Iron Man 2, opens Friday, May 7.
The plot: With the world now
aware of his dual life as the armored
superhero Iron Man, billionaire inven-
tor Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.)
faces pressure from the government,
the press and the public to share
his technology with the military.
Unwilling to let go of his invention,
Stark, along with aide Pepper Potts
(Gwyneth Paltrow, 37) and friend
and associate James "Rhodey"
Rhodes (Don Cheadle), must forge

42

May 6 • 2010

new alliances – and
confront powerful
enemies.
Like the origi-
nal, the sequel was
directed by Jon
Favreau, 43. Favreau
also has small acting
Jon Favreau
roles in both films,
playing Happy Hogan, Stark's body-
guard and driver.
A major addition to the cast is
Scarlett Johansson, 25, who plays
the ambiguous super-villain/heroine
Natasha Romanova – a.k.a. the Black
Widow. Also, look for comedian Garry
Shandling, 60, playing the chairman
of a U.S. Senate panel that questions
Tony Stark.

Sporting Life

On April 19, first
baseman Isaac "Ike"
Davis, 23, made his
Major League debut
with the New York
Mets.
Born and raised
Ike Davis
in Minnesota in an
interfaith family (his father, former
Major League pitcher Ron Davis,
is not Jewish; his mother, Millie, is
Jewish), Ike told the New York Times
that while he was raised secular, he
is named after his maternal grandfa-
ther and that he did a school project
about the history of his mother's
family, including those who died in
the Holocaust.

Taylor Mays, 21, a free safety with
the University of Southern California,
and a three-time, first-team All-
American, has been drafted by the
San Francisco '49ers.
Mays' African-
American father,
Stafford Mays, a
former NFL player,
is now a Microsoft
executive. Taylor's
Jewish mother,

Laurie Black Mays,

is a Nordstrom's
executive. Taylor,
who will graduate in May and was
raised Jewish, credits his preparation
for his bar mitzvah with instilling him
with discipline.

Taylor Mays

❑