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Ahhhh, Wednesday Addams…of the two Addams children, she generally seems to be the most popular. In fact, it’s quite possible she’s the most popular of all the Addamses; she’s the character most people I know (at least of the female gender) want to dress up as on Halloween, or even play onstage someday. Wednesday is perhaps the quintessential “creepy kid.” Whether teenaged or a mere child, she’s a fairly small girl who has wisdom beyond her years and almost never seems to smile, speaking quite monotonously and eternally scowling and pouting. She’s obsessed with death and torture, and relishes, as all the Addamses do, in the gruesome and grim. Iconic and engaging, it’s no wonder so many adaptations of the Charles Addams cartoons tend to put a lot of focus on Wednesday as a character.

There’s not much else to say; again, with a lot of these, there’s really no proper segue to worry about. I just want to share my thoughts! So, grab a bottle of your favorite poison, and prepare the dolls for the guillotine. These are My Top 5 Favorite Portrayals of Wednesday Addams.

5. Chloe Grace Moretz.

On my lists for Gomez and Morticia, I included the interpretations from the 2019 animated film among the ranks. In both cases, I mentioned there was a major problem I had with the film, and this is the list where I plan to bring it up. The plot of the 2019 feature largely focuses on Wednesday: the set up of the film is that the Addams Family has isolated themselves from the rest of the world. Wednesday, and her brother Pugsley, have lived their whole lives effectively knowing nothing of the world beyond and how things “normally” are. When Wednesday encounters a “normal” girl named Parker, the two become friends, despite their differences, and it’s largely through their friendship that the Addamses are able to come out of their shell, while the rest of the world learns to accept (or, at least, tolerate) the Addams Family. What’s wrong with this setup, you may ask? Simply this: to me, the beauty of the Addams Family is that they DON’T separate themselves from the rest of the world. The film does not change the fact that the Addamses see themselves as normal and the rest of the world as completely bonkers (that irony goes right to the core of the concept), but it DOES change the idea by having them hold back from society. To me, what was great about the Addams Family in earlier interpretations was that they were the most tolerant people out of anybody else in their world. The rest of the planet always seemed to be against them, but they were just wonderful people. They were always happy to share their culture, their traditions, and their friendship. They wanted to be good neighbors and, as macabre and morbid and even sinister as they could be, they were, at heart, solid and caring people who loved humanity, in their own bizarre way. There’s a lot you can gleam from that kind of message. So, for me, having the Addamses cut themselves off from the rest of the world was kind of a strange direction to take things; so much of the humor, as well as the meaning, of the Addamses comes from their relationship to the rest of their community and the world at large; if you lose that, you lose something important, in my opinion. WITH THAT SAID…the idea of Wednesday encountering “normal” people is surprisingly a common theme I’ve noticed, and this one did handle that better than some. Moretz’s dry, icy performance works wonders (Wednesday seems to have all the best lines in this movie), and I like how she, as well as the rest of the family, closely resembles the look of the original paper cartoons. Wednesday doesn’t change in terms of personality or motivations throughout the film. Even when dressed in bright pink (which…actually isn’t THAT strange, if you watch some of the older animated cartoons and such), she still acts like Wednesday Addams, and she never comes to hate her family’s ways or sense of style. She simply wants to try new things and find her own path, as anybody and everybody inevitably would. So, on the whole, not a terrible interpretation, but it speaks to the basic flaw of the film. Then again, I suppose the “normal” people in this film are rather abnormal themselves…seriously, the designs didn’t bother me as much as they apparently bothered everyone else, but some of them look like they might as well be part of the Addams clan.

4. Nicole Fugere.

Fugere first played Wednesday in the direct-to-video feature, “Addams Family Reunion.” She sucked. But then again, so did everybody else (aside from maybe Tim Curry), so I can’t really hold that against her; that film was a gaudy little trainwreck, and probably the worst thing associated with the Addams Family since “Fester’s Quest.” (Oh, yes. I went there.) Thankfully, Fugere got a chance to redeem herself on the show “The New Addams Family.” As I’ve said before, that show was essentially a 90s-ified remake of the 60s series, mixing elements of the Sonnenfeld movies with the old sitcom to create its own spin on the same stories for a more modern era. Fugere, fittingly enough, acts more like the movie version of Wednesday than the one that had existed on TV for years up to that point. She’s gloomy, serious, dangerous, and I loved how she and her brother would constantly squabble in their own odd ways. In one of my favorite episodes, the remake of “Gomez the Cat Burglar,” the two spend several days never speaking, all while they both try to death trap the other into making noise. Inevitably, Wednesday wins, and the ways she outsmarts Pugsley time and time again would make the Road Runner proud…and give Wile E. Coyote someone to sympathize with, I’m sure.

3. Lisa Loring.

The original 60s series had a slightly different take on Wednesday than most people would recognize today. First of all, in most interpretations since the classic sitcom (not all, but most), Pugsley is the younger of the two siblings. In the original show, Pugsley is the eldest child, and is in fact quite protective of Wednesday. Second of all, Wednesday was a much more…well…sweet character, for lack of a better way of putting it, than she would later become. She was still obsessed with death, spiders, and torment (one of she and Pugsley’s favorite games is Chinese Water Torture), but she was much more…quiet in her way of working, if that makes sense. A running gag, in fact, was that people would be taken in by how adorable and sad-looking Wednesday so often was, and it wasn’t till they got to talking with her that they started to realize she was a bit different. At times, she could even surprise her parents! In one episode, after the children return early from a birthday party, the neighbor and his son who were hosting the party arrive. They reveal that one of the Addams kids punched the boy in the eye, and everyone at first assumes it was Pugsley. However, when Gomez and Morticia instruct their children to apologize to the boy, it’s Wednesday who says solemnly: “I’m sorry I punched you in the eye, Harold.” Compare that to the way the same scene was later done in the remake of the episode from “The New Addams Family”: in that show, with a more modern Wednesday, there is no secret or twist. Everyone knows it was Wednesday, and her apology isn’t even remotely sincere, as she finishes it up with the line, “Next time I’ll hit you where it doesn’t leave a mark.” You see? It’s two very different interpretations: one can fool you, the other lets it all hang loose. And while I love the more modern Wednesday, I do feel this “cute but deadly” interpretation had a lot of merit, too.

2. Debi Derryberry.

What’s interesting about the 90s animated version of Wednesday Addams is that it’s not quite like any other version. It’s sort of a bizarre hybrid of the 60s version and the more modern take on the character. Wednesday is the eldest child, and seems more outwardly sophisticated, much like the version from the Sonnenfeld films, the New Addams Family, and other versions. However, she doesn’t quite seem to be the sort to not-so-secretly plot to murder you in your sleep every time she looks at you. In fact, this Wednesday, instead of always frowning, always seems to be SMILING…but it’s never a wide, excited sort of smile. She always looks sort of sad and tired, as if the smile is only skin deep, which is a little odd but still gets the message across: “Wednesday’s Child is Full of Woe.” Her mannerisms are particularly interesting; she calls people “Dear Uncle” and “Dear Brother” and so on, something no other version of Wednesday I’m aware of tries. Yet it still feels distinctly like her, if that makes sense. Debi Derryberry gives the perfect voice to the character, able to somehow sound dour and depressed while still having a strange pleasantness to her. This version of Wednesday is also another who has to face the real world, but it’s handled much better here: in one episode, its revealed that Wednesday is a huge fangirl of a TV host called Graveyard Gary, and has a bit of a crush on the Goth-themed celebrity. She doesn’t realize that Gary’s ghoulish façade is just that: it’s a character, an act he puts on for the people, and when he reaches the Addams’ residence, he finds it’s a bit too dark even for him. In this case, I think it works well because Wednesday is more of an antagonist, and the plot is less about her meeting the real world and more the real world coming to her, with typical results; it feels like something out of the 60s sitcom, which is fine by me.

However, I think we all know who my favorite Wednesday Addams is; whenever you mention the name, this is the portrayal people think of, and for good reason. I am of course referring to…

1. Christina Ricci.

While actresses like Nicole Fugere and Chloe Grace Moretz have imitated Ricci’s starmaking performance from the Barry Sonnenfeld feature films, none have really managed to duplicate its power. In working on this list, I think I figured out just why it is that, for me, the film versions of Uncle Fester and Wednesday are my favorites, more than the 60s sitcom, which was my favorite for Morticia and Gomez. It all comes down to one word: focus. In both films, the focus of the story is really on Fester and the kids, not so much on Gomez & Morticia. Make no mistake, Gomez and Morticia are huge parts of the story, too, but the biggest character arc in the first film is Fester, as the story is really about him reconnecting with his long lost family. The conflict and drive of the story comes from Fester’s adventures, and as for the kids, they become a big part of his change, especially Wednesday. In the second film, you essentially have the focus split between two key subplots: Uncle Fester becoming engaged with a woman who is secretly a serial killer, and Wednesday and Pugsley going to camp. Again, Gomez & Morticia DO have a lot of great scenes and moments, and their own story to play out – their subplot mostly focuses on Morticia being pregnant with a third child - but when I think of “Addams Family Values,” those are the two big stories I remember, and most of my favorite scenes in both films go to Fester and Wednesday. Gomez and Morticia have their ups and downs throughout the tow movies, but they ends on the same note they began with, so to speak. Fester and Wednesday do not. In the sitcom, Gomez and Morticia were the main characters; the episodes may or may not have centered around them, but they were easily the most focused-on characters; Wednesday wasn’t even IN every episode. It was really the movies that gave us the Wednesday we know today, and part of the reason I think she connected with people was not only Ricci’s performance, but the amount of focus Ricci’s Wednesday had, just in terms of the writing. I also think that Ricci manages to find a perfect balance of emotion, knowing just how much to hold back and how much to show; other actresses since who have tried to go for a similar style and take on the character tend to either be too expressive or too blank. It’s a difficult balancing act, and Ricci not only got it started, but perfected it. Finally, the idea of Wednesday vs. Normality? That ARGUABLY started with this version; in the second film, Wednesday develops a crush on a rather normal, geeky boy at the camp, and it plays out frankly EXACTLY the way I think such a story should play out. It’s pretty much a no-brainer that Christina Ricci is My Favorite Portrayal of Wednesday Addams.

Honorable Mentions Include…

Krysta Rodriguez.

Both of my Honorable Mentions here go to actresses who played the role of Wednesday in “The Addams Family: The Musical.” Much like the 2019 film, I mentioned in previous lists there was one key problem I had with this show, and once again, that problem revolves around Wednesday. In the musical, once again, the plot largely revolves around Wednesday vs. Normality: in this case, Wednesday has just turned 18 years old (once again, she’s older than Pugsley, who in MOST productions is still a little boy, and in others is just a younger teenager, presumably depending on the cast), and has fallen madly in love with a very normal boy named Lucas. Her relationship with him has caused her whole outlook on the world to start to flip; she still loves strapping her brother to the rack, and shooting things with her favorite crossbow, but she also suddenly has an urge to go to Disney World, and wants to listen to Liberace’s greatest hits. (…Is…is Liberace even still a thing? Forgive my ignorance, but aside from my grandmother, I don’t know anyone who listens to his music, or even knows his name.) All this I could forgive, because I actually like the idea of Wednesday falling in love with a normal guy and all the shenanigans that can ensue, and the idea of the culture clash is cute and interesting…but the problem lies in the execution, as apparently Wednesday has become aware of the fact that her family’s way of living is not normal, and the way the family talks with her seems to make it out as if they’re aware of it to. Again, that’s kind of against the POINT of the Addams Family: in their minds, they were and are totally normal, average people in a crazy world, and the humor largely comes from that outlook. That’s how it was in the movies, the 60s show, the animated series, the New Addams Family show, and even the original Charles Addams newspaper cartoons. Heck, even Addams Family Reunion AND the 2019 film both got that part right! As a result, while I love the portrayals of the characters overall, it does weaken the show and it DEFINITELY weakens Wednesday, who at times feels like she’s more of a generic Goth girl than the Wednesday we’ve all come to know and love. WITH ALL THAT SAID…now let me actually say that Krysta Rodriguez, who played Wednesday in the original Broadway cast, as well as the prior Chicago show, does a pretty darn good job making all this work. She’s a bit more expressive than I would like, but she keeps the key elements and has an incredibly impressive voice, allowing you to truly feel Wednesday’s struggle between the life she’s always known and the new life she’s learning to accept.

Cortney Wolfson.

Having rambled on about the musical in the previous Honorable Mention: it was actually hard for me to choose between Cortney Wolfson, who played Wednesday in the first national tour of the musical, and Carrie Hope Fletcher, who played Wednesday in the original UK touring production. Fletcher has an admittedly much stronger singing voice, and she LOOKS more like Wednesday, in terms of makeup and costume design…but I think she goes a little too over-the-top at times in her acting choices. It’s a pity, because I LOVE Carrie Hope Fletcher as a performer, and her Wednesday IS one of the better ones when it comes to the musical, I just felt that while Wolfson’s singing was slightly weaker, her acting was much better. She manages to keep a much blanker slate, doing a lot with very little; at times she even tops Krysta Rodriguez, which is pretty impressive. The best way to put it is that Fletcher walks the walk, but Wolfson talks the talk, and I think that ultimately makes the difference.

Description

Ahhhh, Wednesday Addams…of the two Addams children, she generally seems to be the most popular. In fact, it’s quite possible she’s the most popular of all the Addamses; she’s the character most people I know (at least of the female gender) want to dress up as on Halloween, or even play onstage someday. Wednesday is perhaps the quintessential “creepy kid.” Whether teenaged or a mere child, she’s a fairly small girl who has wisdom beyond her years and almost never seems to smile, speaking quite monotonously and eternally scowling and pouting. She’s obsessed with death and torture, and relishes, as all the Addamses do, in the gruesome and grim. Iconic and engaging, it’s no wonder so many adaptations of the Charles Addams cartoons tend to put a lot of focus on Wednesday as a character.

There’s not much else to say; again, with a lot of these, there’s really no proper segue to worry about. I just want to share my thoughts! So, grab a bottle of your favorite poison, and prepare the dolls for the guillotine. These are My Top 5 Favorite Portrayals of Wednesday Addams.

5. Chloe Grace Moretz.

On my lists for Gomez and Morticia, I included the interpretations from the 2019 animated film among the ranks. In both cases, I mentioned there was a major problem I had with the film, and this is the list where I plan to bring it up. The plot of the 2019 feature largely focuses on Wednesday: the set up of the film is that the Addams Family has isolated themselves from the rest of the world. Wednesday, and her brother Pugsley, have lived their whole lives effectively knowing nothing of the world beyond and how things “normally” are. When Wednesday encounters a “normal” girl named Parker, the two become friends, despite their differences, and it’s largely through their friendship that the Addamses are able to come out of their shell, while the rest of the world learns to accept (or, at least, tolerate) the Addams Family. What’s wrong with this setup, you may ask? Simply this: to me, the beauty of the Addams Family is that they DON’T separate themselves from the rest of the world. The film does not change the fact that the Addamses see themselves as normal and the rest of the world as completely bonkers (that irony goes right to the core of the concept), but it DOES change the idea by having them hold back from society. To me, what was great about the Addams Family in earlier interpretations was that they were the most tolerant people out of anybody else in their world. The rest of the planet always seemed to be against them, but they were just wonderful people. They were always happy to share their culture, their traditions, and their friendship. They wanted to be good neighbors and, as macabre and morbid and even sinister as they could be, they were, at heart, solid and caring people who loved humanity, in their own bizarre way. There’s a lot you can gleam from that kind of message. So, for me, having the Addamses cut themselves off from the rest of the world was kind of a strange direction to take things; so much of the humor, as well as the meaning, of the Addamses comes from their relationship to the rest of their community and the world at large; if you lose that, you lose something important, in my opinion. WITH THAT SAID…the idea of Wednesday encountering “normal” people is surprisingly a common theme I’ve noticed, and this one did handle that better than some. Moretz’s dry, icy performance works wonders (Wednesday seems to have all the best lines in this movie), and I like how she, as well as the rest of the family, closely resembles the look of the original paper cartoons. Wednesday doesn’t change in terms of personality or motivations throughout the film. Even when dressed in bright pink (which…actually isn’t THAT strange, if you watch some of the older animated cartoons and such), she still acts like Wednesday Addams, and she never comes to hate her family’s ways or sense of style. She simply wants to try new things and find her own path, as anybody and everybody inevitably would. So, on the whole, not a terrible interpretation, but it speaks to the basic flaw of the film. Then again, I suppose the “normal” people in this film are rather abnormal themselves…seriously, the designs didn’t bother me as much as they apparently bothered everyone else, but some of them look like they might as well be part of the Addams clan.

4. Nicole Fugere.

Fugere first played Wednesday in the direct-to-video feature, “Addams Family Reunion.” She sucked. But then again, so did everybody else (aside from maybe Tim Curry), so I can’t really hold that against her; that film was a gaudy little trainwreck, and probably the worst thing associated with the Addams Family since “Fester’s Quest.” (Oh, yes. I went there.) Thankfully, Fugere got a chance to redeem herself on the show “The New Addams Family.” As I’ve said before, that show was essentially a 90s-ified remake of the 60s series, mixing elements of the Sonnenfeld movies with the old sitcom to create its own spin on the same stories for a more modern era. Fugere, fittingly enough, acts more like the movie version of Wednesday than the one that had existed on TV for years up to that point. She’s gloomy, serious, dangerous, and I loved how she and her brother would constantly squabble in their own odd ways. In one of my favorite episodes, the remake of “Gomez the Cat Burglar,” the two spend several days never speaking, all while they both try to death trap the other into making noise. Inevitably, Wednesday wins, and the ways she outsmarts Pugsley time and time again would make the Road Runner proud…and give Wile E. Coyote someone to sympathize with, I’m sure.

3. Lisa Loring.

The original 60s series had a slightly different take on Wednesday than most people would recognize today. First of all, in most interpretations since the classic sitcom (not all, but most), Pugsley is the younger of the two siblings. In the original show, Pugsley is the eldest child, and is in fact quite protective of Wednesday. Second of all, Wednesday was a much more…well…sweet character, for lack of a better way of putting it, than she would later become. She was still obsessed with death, spiders, and torment (one of she and Pugsley’s favorite games is Chinese Water Torture), but she was much more…quiet in her way of working, if that makes sense. A running gag, in fact, was that people would be taken in by how adorable and sad-looking Wednesday so often was, and it wasn’t till they got to talking with her that they started to realize she was a bit different. At times, she could even surprise her parents! In one episode, after the children return early from a birthday party, the neighbor and his son who were hosting the party arrive. They reveal that one of the Addams kids punched the boy in the eye, and everyone at first assumes it was Pugsley. However, when Gomez and Morticia instruct their children to apologize to the boy, it’s Wednesday who says solemnly: “I’m sorry I punched you in the eye, Harold.” Compare that to the way the same scene was later done in the remake of the episode from “The New Addams Family”: in that show, with a more modern Wednesday, there is no secret or twist. Everyone knows it was Wednesday, and her apology isn’t even remotely sincere, as she finishes it up with the line, “Next time I’ll hit you where it doesn’t leave a mark.” You see? It’s two very different interpretations: one can fool you, the other lets it all hang loose. And while I love the more modern Wednesday, I do feel this “cute but deadly” interpretation had a lot of merit, too.

2. Debi Derryberry.

What’s interesting about the 90s animated version of Wednesday Addams is that it’s not quite like any other version. It’s sort of a bizarre hybrid of the 60s version and the more modern take on the character. Wednesday is the eldest child, and seems more outwardly sophisticated, much like the version from the Sonnenfeld films, the New Addams Family, and other versions. However, she doesn’t quite seem to be the sort to not-so-secretly plot to murder you in your sleep every time she looks at you. In fact, this Wednesday, instead of always frowning, always seems to be SMILING…but it’s never a wide, excited sort of smile. She always looks sort of sad and tired, as if the smile is only skin deep, which is a little odd but still gets the message across: “Wednesday’s Child is Full of Woe.” Her mannerisms are particularly interesting; she calls people “Dear Uncle” and “Dear Brother” and so on, something no other version of Wednesday I’m aware of tries. Yet it still feels distinctly like her, if that makes sense. Debi Derryberry gives the perfect voice to the character, able to somehow sound dour and depressed while still having a strange pleasantness to her. This version of Wednesday is also another who has to face the real world, but it’s handled much better here: in one episode, its revealed that Wednesday is a huge fangirl of a TV host called Graveyard Gary, and has a bit of a crush on the Goth-themed celebrity. She doesn’t realize that Gary’s ghoulish façade is just that: it’s a character, an act he puts on for the people, and when he reaches the Addams’ residence, he finds it’s a bit too dark even for him. In this case, I think it works well because Wednesday is more of an antagonist, and the plot is less about her meeting the real world and more the real world coming to her, with typical results; it feels like something out of the 60s sitcom, which is fine by me.

However, I think we all know who my favorite Wednesday Addams is; whenever you mention the name, this is the portrayal people think of, and for good reason. I am of course referring to…

1. Christina Ricci.

While actresses like Nicole Fugere and Chloe Grace Moretz have imitated Ricci’s starmaking performance from the Barry Sonnenfeld feature films, none have really managed to duplicate its power. In working on this list, I think I figured out just why it is that, for me, the film versions of Uncle Fester and Wednesday are my favorites, more than the 60s sitcom, which was my favorite for Morticia and Gomez. It all comes down to one word: focus. In both films, the focus of the story is really on Fester and the kids, not so much on Gomez & Morticia. Make no mistake, Gomez and Morticia are huge parts of the story, too, but the biggest character arc in the first film is Fester, as the story is really about him reconnecting with his long lost family. The conflict and drive of the story comes from Fester’s adventures, and as for the kids, they become a big part of his change, especially Wednesday. In the second film, you essentially have the focus split between two key subplots: Uncle Fester becoming engaged with a woman who is secretly a serial killer, and Wednesday and Pugsley going to camp. Again, Gomez & Morticia DO have a lot of great scenes and moments, and their own story to play out – their subplot mostly focuses on Morticia being pregnant with a third child - but when I think of “Addams Family Values,” those are the two big stories I remember, and most of my favorite scenes in both films go to Fester and Wednesday. Gomez and Morticia have their ups and downs throughout the tow movies, but they ends on the same note they began with, so to speak. Fester and Wednesday do not. In the sitcom, Gomez and Morticia were the main characters; the episodes may or may not have centered around them, but they were easily the most focused-on characters; Wednesday wasn’t even IN every episode. It was really the movies that gave us the Wednesday we know today, and part of the reason I think she connected with people was not only Ricci’s performance, but the amount of focus Ricci’s Wednesday had, just in terms of the writing. I also think that Ricci manages to find a perfect balance of emotion, knowing just how much to hold back and how much to show; other actresses since who have tried to go for a similar style and take on the character tend to either be too expressive or too blank. It’s a difficult balancing act, and Ricci not only got it started, but perfected it. Finally, the idea of Wednesday vs. Normality? That ARGUABLY started with this version; in the second film, Wednesday develops a crush on a rather normal, geeky boy at the camp, and it plays out frankly EXACTLY the way I think such a story should play out. It’s pretty much a no-brainer that Christina Ricci is My Favorite Portrayal of Wednesday Addams.

Honorable Mentions Include…

Krysta Rodriguez.

Both of my Honorable Mentions here go to actresses who played the role of Wednesday in “The Addams Family: The Musical.” Much like the 2019 film, I mentioned in previous lists there was one key problem I had with this show, and once again, that problem revolves around Wednesday. In the musical, once again, the plot largely revolves around Wednesday vs. Normality: in this case, Wednesday has just turned 18 years old (once again, she’s older than Pugsley, who in MOST productions is still a little boy, and in others is just a younger teenager, presumably depending on the cast), and has fallen madly in love with a very normal boy named Lucas. Her relationship with him has caused her whole outlook on the world to start to flip; she still loves strapping her brother to the rack, and shooting things with her favorite crossbow, but she also suddenly has an urge to go to Disney World, and wants to listen to Liberace’s greatest hits. (…Is…is Liberace even still a thing? Forgive my ignorance, but aside from my grandmother, I don’t know anyone who listens to his music, or even knows his name.) All this I could forgive, because I actually like the idea of Wednesday falling in love with a normal guy and all the shenanigans that can ensue, and the idea of the culture clash is cute and interesting…but the problem lies in the execution, as apparently Wednesday has become aware of the fact that her family’s way of living is not normal, and the way the family talks with her seems to make it out as if they’re aware of it to. Again, that’s kind of against the POINT of the Addams Family: in their minds, they were and are totally normal, average people in a crazy world, and the humor largely comes from that outlook. That’s how it was in the movies, the 60s show, the animated series, the New Addams Family show, and even the original Charles Addams newspaper cartoons. Heck, even Addams Family Reunion AND the 2019 film both got that part right! As a result, while I love the portrayals of the characters overall, it does weaken the show and it DEFINITELY weakens Wednesday, who at times feels like she’s more of a generic Goth girl than the Wednesday we’ve all come to know and love. WITH ALL THAT SAID…now let me actually say that Krysta Rodriguez, who played Wednesday in the original Broadway cast, as well as the prior Chicago show, does a pretty darn good job making all this work. She’s a bit more expressive than I would like, but she keeps the key elements and has an incredibly impressive voice, allowing you to truly feel Wednesday’s struggle between the life she’s always known and the new life she’s learning to accept.

Cortney Wolfson.

Having rambled on about the musical in the previous Honorable Mention: it was actually hard for me to choose between Cortney Wolfson, who played Wednesday in the first national tour of the musical, and Carrie Hope Fletcher, who played Wednesday in the original UK touring production. Fletcher has an admittedly much stronger singing voice, and she LOOKS more like Wednesday, in terms of makeup and costume design…but I think she goes a little too over-the-top at times in her acting choices. It’s a pity, because I LOVE Carrie Hope Fletcher as a performer, and her Wednesday IS one of the better ones when it comes to the musical, I just felt that while Wolfson’s singing was slightly weaker, her acting was much better. She manages to keep a much blanker slate, doing a lot with very little; at times she even tops Krysta Rodriguez, which is pretty impressive. The best way to put it is that Fletcher walks the walk, but Wolfson talks the talk, and I think that ultimately makes the difference.