Athens Theatre · DeLand, Florida · October 2, 2026
The business behind
a great night
at the theater.
I went to see The Addams Family. I left appreciating the people onstage and the work that gives a community another reason to gather.
I went because I wanted to see a show.
I saw The Addams Family at the Athens Theatre in DeLand, and it was amazing.
I was there to enjoy myself, and I did. People had put their talent into something, and I was glad I had bought a ticket. The business questions followed me home. They have a habit of doing that.
I spend enough time thinking about businesses that the practical questions tend to follow me into places. A theater gives those questions unusually good company. You can appreciate a performance and still be curious about everything required to make it available to an audience.
Live theater has a peculiar commercial challenge. The work begins before the customer arrives, the finished experience depends on people doing that work together in real time, and every performance has a deadline. There is a particular evening when the seats need people in them.
On October 2, I was one of those people. I had friends to cheer for, characters to enjoy, and another reason to appreciate what Athens makes possible here.
Give the people their names
Someone you know can still surprise you.
I am friends with Alexa and Rob Baldwin. Seeing them in this production added something personal to the evening. The theater credits Alexa as Alice Beineke and Robert Baldwin as Mal Beineke, the visiting parents whose son is dating Wednesday Addams.
Alexa’s transformation from a demure housewife into a wonderfully wild character was a particular pleasure. I am leaving the circumstances alone. Go see what she does with them.
There is something delightful about watching a friend become someone else convincingly enough that you stop thinking about the person you know. Familiarity gets you interested. The performance has to earn the rest.
The Baldwins are part of our family’s life, too. Their child has been in plays with my daughter and at birthday parties in our home. The cast credits list Lilly Baldwin as Ancestor/Cousin Itt. That connection makes the word “community” feel very ordinary and very real to me. These are people whose lives meet ours away from the stage.
Thomas Muniz and Mary Cuchetti, the production’s credited Gomez and Morticia, deserve more than a passing mention. I loved seeing those characters brought to life. Reading their biographies in the program afterward gave me another reason to appreciate the people doing it.
Muniz’s Athens credits include Daddy Warbucks in Annie, Colonel Mustard in Clue, Teddy in Arsenic and Old Lace, Tito in Lend Me a Tenor, and Herr Schultz in Cabaret. His program biography also lists Angels in America at Theater West End in Sanford; Hysteria and RED with The Ensemble Company at Imagine Performing Arts Center in Oviedo; and The Odd Couple: Female Version at the IceHouse Theatre in Mount Dora.
That is a considerable range of people to have been. Most of us struggle to maintain one reasonably presentable personality through a trip to the grocery store.
Cuchetti’s program biography traces her training to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and names roles in Miss Saigon at Seaside Music Theatre, Blood Brothers at CCM, and Starting Here, Starting Now at North Carolina Theatre. She also teaches piano and voice at the Cuchetti School of Music in Edgewater. The program describes her work as a music minister at Family Worship Center and her musical work with local senior living communities.
I appreciate that combination. An audience gets to enjoy what she brings to Morticia. A student gets time with a teacher who has spent years putting the craft into practice. Other people encounter her music in the places where they live and gather. The stage is one part of a much larger working life.
Those biographies also make a useful business point without turning the performers into a business lesson. A theater can advertise a production for a few weeks. The people who make it worth seeing may have spent decades preparing. Central Florida’s stages share in that accumulated experience as artists work in different rooms, take on different roles, and teach what they know. Supporting one venue helps give that talent another place to work.
And Fester was quirky, ridiculous, and bold. Danny Sanchez is credited in the role. Playing someone that unhinged looked like tremendous fun. Most of us have to remain reasonably employable in public. Fester has other priorities.
That kind of freedom still takes craft. An actor can make a character feel gloriously unpredictable while working inside a performance that other people need to follow. The audience gets the absurdity. The production needs the timing.
Tomorrow cannot sell yesterday’s empty seat.
A theater can sell a ticket for another performance. It cannot recover the opportunity to seat someone at a performance that has already ended.
That gives the business of entertainment a different rhythm from selling an object that can stay on a shelf. Demand has to arrive in time. Someone interested in the show needs to choose a date, coordinate with whoever is coming, and commit before the opportunity passes.
Meanwhile, much of the preparation has already happened. A production needs rehearsal, design, technical preparation, and the coordination that brings those efforts together. A smaller audience does not make the actors’ preparation proportionally smaller. You cannot rehearse only the percentage of the script represented by ticket sales.
But filling the room is only one financial question. Prices affect both revenue and who can attend. Discounts may help introduce people to the experience while reducing what each ticket contributes. Additional performances can create more opportunities to attend, but they also ask for more time and resources. Those decisions belong together.
The Athens Theatre’s own support page explains that ticket revenue covers only part of what it needs and describes the substantial contribution of volunteers. I read that as important context for appreciating the place. The ticket is one form of support within a wider undertaking.
It would be a mistake to treat donated time as if the work had no value. Someone is still making room in a life for it. Skill, preparation, and responsibility remain real whether or not every hour appears as a wage expense.
I do not know the budget for this production. I do know that the pleasure I had as an audience member depended on effort that began well before my evening did. That deserves respect from anyone talking about the business.
The performance ends.
The work of making another one possible continues.
Before someone buys a ticket
A familiar title opens a door. People still have to walk through it.
The Addams Family arrives with characters many people already recognize. That familiarity gives a prospective audience a starting point. It does not tell them everything they need to know about this production or this evening.
A person may love the characters and still wonder whether the show suits their child, how long it runs, or which seats they can use comfortably. Those are reasonable questions. Answering them is part of welcoming an audience.
The official Athens listing gives content guidance and running-time information alongside tickets. It also identifies selected interpreted and audio-described performances. Those details help someone decide whether and how to participate.
Good entertainment marketing has to respect that practical decision. A dramatic poster can make someone curious. Clear information helps them make plans. Neither replaces the work onstage.
And the work onstage has to offer something beyond recognition. People know Gomez, Morticia, and Fester. They are buying the chance to encounter these characters through the choices of performers, here, in a room with other people.
That is why I would want a theater’s communication to give the artists some room. Their interpretation is part of what makes a particular production worth attending. Credit helps an audience understand that the evening has makers.
These connections between the experience and the invitation are part of my work with theaters and arts centers. A good invitation gives someone enough confidence to say yes while leaving the performance its discoveries.
The people beyond one performance
My friendship with the Baldwins is personal. My admiration for the evening includes the whole production.
Community gives the work somewhere to live.
Knowing someone in a show can get you through the door. That is a perfectly good beginning. A friend, a family member, or a child’s connection gives you a reason to choose this evening over another one.
The larger challenge is giving someone who knows nobody in the cast a reason to feel equally welcome. A theater needs to make room for the person attending out of affection and the person arriving out of curiosity.
I like thinking about the Baldwins in that wider picture. I know them through ordinary life, and I get to see them contribute to an experience other people can enjoy without knowing them at all. Friendship is my connection to part of the work. The performance opens that work to everyone with a ticket.
That is one of the things I admire about performing arts in a community. People become visible to one another in a different way. Someone you know as a parent has a talent you get to appreciate. A child sees another child taking a role seriously. The place gains meaning through what its people do.
I have written separately about Athens Theatre’s place in my family’s life. This evening gave that relationship another specific memory. It also reminded me that personal attachment and excellent work can strengthen each other. I wanted my friends to do well. I also wanted to see a great show. I was delighted by the evening.
What I brought home
A reason to come back is worth building carefully.
A theater has to promote each production, but it benefits when people develop a relationship with the place as well. Familiarity can make the next decision easier. You know where you are going. You know how the evening works. You have a memory that makes another visit appealing.
That relationship needs renewing. One wonderful show cannot promise that every production will suit every person. Programming has its own creative reasons, and audiences have different tastes. The useful trust is that the work deserves a look, even when the next title is less familiar.
For me, The Addams Family gave Athens another reason to occupy that place on the calendar. Alexa and Rob, the family connection, Gomez and Morticia, and Fester’s wonderfully unreasonable presence all belong to that memory.
So do the people whose work I enjoyed without necessarily knowing their names. I am grateful they made the evening possible.
If you are choosing a night out, look at Athens Theatre’s official production information. Check the remaining dates and current availability there. Let the cast keep the surprises.
Rob Urban