THE timing could not be better for Pick Me Up Theatre's York premiere of Andrew Lippa’s Broadway musical version of The Addams Family.

Next week's run at the Grand Opera House is timed to coincide with Hallowe'en celebrations with 7.30pm performances on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, 5pm and 8pm Saturday shows and 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees.

Directed by Robert Readman, the American musical has music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa, book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice and, of course, characters byCharles Addams, whose ghoulish but loveable family of creepy kooks is alive and well and living in their super-spooky mansion in Central Park.

As the curtain rises, the last dead leaf of autumn falls from the Family Tree, and all is right with the morbid, macabre world of Gomez, Morticia, Fester, Grandma, Wednesday, Pugsley and Lurch. They have gathered where else but in the family graveyard, to celebrate life and death in a yearly ritual to connect with their past and ensure their future.

They seem at peace, not only with each other and their inimitable, unchanging "Addams-ness", but also with their dead ancestors, who emerge from their graves on this night each year to join in a celebration of continuity.

As the ritual ends, however, Fester blocks the ancestors’ return to their graves. Those unchanging Addams family values are now to be tested as Fester enlists their help to set things right, just in case a new family secret goes terribly wrong. What’s the secret? Wednesday Addams, that irresistible bundle of malice, has grown up, found love, developed a smile and become engaged.

So what’s the problem? The nice "normal" young man, Lucas Beineke, is from Ohio, and his parents are coming to dinner to meet the family. Cue the inevitable Addams madness when two different worlds to collide. Will love triumph, or will everyone go home vaguely depressed?

The role of Wednesday goes to Wheldrake teenager Holly Surtees-Smith, who has had a dream of a year, finishing her B-Tech in musical theatre at York College and landing principal roles in two Pick Me Up shows in quick succession. First came the awkward, but blooming Rose in the Broadway musical Dogfight at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre in August and now the teen goth queen Wednesday.

"When Robert [Readman] picked me for Rose, I was over the moon, and it was only a week later I was told I'd got Wednesday too. I thought, 'this cannot be real. Someone must be playing a trick on me', because they're such completely different characters," says Holly, 18, who had joined Readman's company only a year earlier to play a hospital ghost in Ghost: The Musical.

"When I was playing Rose in Dogfight, she had to be quite a sad character; now for Wednesday, it's...all about death basically! But I'll bring some fun to it because with this sort of show, it needs to be fun as it's family friendly. She has some funny lines and there's a lot of comedy going on."

Rose was a "very challenging, very emotional" role. "Dogfight was a show with very beautiful music and I felt honoured to play Rose, and now I'm so excited to be playing Wednesday at the Grand Opera House," says Holly. "I've done Hairspray, Annie and Grease, but this will be my first principal role there. That's quite scary, but very exciting at the same time."

Playing opposite Holly's Wednesday as the nice Lucas Beineke will be 16-year-old Sam Hird, last seen as the swivel-hipped fellow teenager Ritchie Valens singing La Bamba in Buddy at the JoRo Theatre in August. "Lucas is one of only a few normal characters in The Addams Family, whereas Ritchie was flamboyant, confident, swaying his hips. Lucas is the stark opposite, though he really doesn't want to end up like his dull dad, so he does become a bit crazy in the second half, which is fun to play."

After Wednesday and Lucas, Holly and Sam will reunite next year to play the leads Corsette and Jean Valjean in George Stagnell's production of Les Misérables: School Edition for Pick Me Up at the JoRo in February. 2016 promises to be just as busy as 2015.

Pick Me Up Theatre present The Addams Family, Grand Opera House, York, October 28 to 31. Tickets: £11 to £25 on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets,com/york