Four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks has been hired as creative consultant on The Addams Family, a new musical based on the bizarre family of characters created by legendary cartoonist Charles Addams. The show is now at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts’ Oriental Theater in Chicago through January 10, and will play Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, with previews now beginning March 8, in anticipation of an April 8 opening.

Zaks will work with Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch, the show’s directors and designers, but according to a report in The New York Times, Zaks will be in charge of the production.

It stars Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth as Gomez and Morticia Adams. It also features Terrence Mann and Carolee Carmello as Mal and Alice Beineke, a couple who come to dinner at the family’s residence, Kevin Chamberlin (Uncle Fester), Jackie Hoffman (Grandmama), Zachary James (Lurch), Adam Riegler (Pugsley), Krysta Rodriguez (Wednesday), and Wesley Taylor (Lucas Beineke).  Theater Mania