Roger Rees to Replace Nathan Lane as Addams Family Patriarch

Tony Award winner Roger Rees will take over the role of Gomez Addams in The Addams Family beginning March 22, 2011, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Current star Nathan Lane will play his final performance on March 6. Bebe Neuwirth, Rees' close friend and former co-star on TV's Cheers and multiple stage projects, will remain in the role of Morticia Addams.

Rees is a Best Actor Tony winner for his performance in the title role of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby and received a Tony nomination for Indiscretions. On television, he played Robin Colcord opposite Neuwirth's Lilith Sternin Crane on Cheers. On stage, he directed Neuwirth in the Kurt Weill revue Here Lies Jenny, and they co-starred in The Taming of the Shrew (as Petruchio and Kate) at Williamstown Theater Festival and in an L.A. production of Cabaret Verboten. Rees' other Broadway credits include Uncle Vanya, The Rehearsal, The Red Shoes and London Assurance. Off-Broadway, he starred in the musical A Man of No Importance and received an Obie for The End of the Day.

The Addams Family features a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, and music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa. The production is directed and designed (sets and costumes) by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch, with creative consultation by Jerry Zaks. The show opened on Broadway on April 8, 2010.