What Would Ethel Have Said?
Page Six reports: ‘The talented lad who gets cast as Morticia and Gomez’s son, Pugsley (played originally on TV by Ken Weatherfax, pictured), in Broadway’s upcoming “The Addams Family: The Musical,” will need to pack on the pounds and have leather lungs. This week’s Backstage carries a casting call for the play by Andrew Lippa, Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, seeking a “male, 12, Caucasian, plump, adorable, funny . . . with a big and unchanged singing voice, think Ethel Merman (pictured).’ I suspect that Merman, a stern critic, would respond to the Addams Family musical the way she responded to Harvey Fierstein, when she was taken backstage after seeing his play “Torch Song Trilogy.” “Did you like it, Miss Merman?” Harvey asked. “I thought it was a piece of shit,” she replied. “But everyone around me was laughing, so what the fuck do I know?”
