By Alisa Boswell-Gore
Cast members of the Portales High School musical, The Addams Family, are headed to Albuquerque to compete against other top high school performers.
The show was nominated for best show in the state by the New Mexico High School Theatre Awards, while Joseph Erwin, who played the family father figure, Gomez, and Liam Hurley, who played his brother, Fester, were both nominated for best actor.
Portales High was the only 4A school to make the top five.
And all they have to do to win is learn and perform an entirely new medley and two solos.
No big deal, right?
“I’m getting nervous, because a week from Saturday, I’ll know if I’m going to New York or not for the Jimmy Awards for national (in June),” said Hurley.
The Addams Family cast will find out if they will take home the win for their state nominations at the awards ceremony on May 5 in Albuquerque.
The energy of Erwin and Hurley is hardly limited to the stage as the two young men excitedly reminisced about the Addams Family show earlier this week.
The two young men said there were some small slip ups during the show, such as Liam’s wig falling off in one scene, but luckily, the two young actors and their counterparts know how to improvise.
“The accent was a little difficult,” Erwin said of his biggest challenge with the show. “It sounded a little Transylvanian for a while.”
Hurley said his biggest challenges were learning his brief solo on the ukulele, and “I didn’t like putting the bald cap on.”
This was also the first time a PHS cast broke the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience, something that both Erwin’s and Hurley’s characters did throughout the show.
“(I like) just getting to take on this persona and finding out what their motivations are and portraying that to other people,” said Erwin. “I basically got to be a dad when I’m not a dad yet.”
And the best part of that?
“The dad jokes,” said Erwin. “I loved the dad jokes.”
“What I really enjoy about it is the fact that there’s a live audience there, and they came there to watch us. A lot of people come to live shows to get away from life and relax. Since they’re laughing, they’re enjoying it and having fun, and that makes me happy that I’m part of that,” Liam said of his favorite part of theater, which he has been partaking in for his entire high school career.
PHS Drama Teacher Heather Hagler said a lot of people have been telling her that this was the best show that PHS has ever done.
“I’m really proud of them. I’m pretty much over the moon proud. We’ve really worked hard the last couple of years to make this a good program and to work well together,” said Hagler. “They are good kids, and they work really hard, but they just took it to the next level. We set a goal of excellence, and I remind them, let’s hit that goal or higher, and I think they hit higher.”
