Tonight would have been the final performance of The Addams Family. The Classic asked Francesca Manabat to design what Junior Weiye Yasen would have looked like as Wednesday Addams, a key role in the musical (see below).

Wednesday Addams is known for her gothic fashion sense, as well as her bitter and dry-witted personality. She enjoys raising spiders, writing poems to them, and painting sinister pictures of human heads and trees. She falls in love with a “normal” boy and must learn to balance her relationship with his family and her quite unusual family. 

Q & A with junior Weiye Yasen (Wednesday Addams)

Q: What’s your favorite thing about playing Wednesday Addams?

A:  My favorite part of playing Wednesday is trying to figure her character out.  She is a really interesting character that has a lot of different sides to her, and I feel like, throughout the play, she is trying to figure out who she really is.  It’s also about learning the process of making decisions, not based on what I would do, but based on what Wednesday Addams would do. 

Q: What scene in the play were you most looking forward to seeing executed on stage?

A: There are so many exciting scenes, but I was looking forward to putting One Normal Night together because practically everyone is involved. 

Q: How has COVID-19’s effect on the performance made you feel? 

A: I was extremely disappointed, but I tried to have hope that we could still go back to school early enough to still put some sort of production together. I guess in a way, my wish came true because we’re still doing something virtually! 

[vsw id=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Idec2BOzo” source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Idec2BOzo

Watch Weiye Yasen take on the role of Wednesday Addams. Animation as Victor Shemper
Backdrop art by Joanna Li. Produced by the Townsend Harris Players