THE Addams Family is this year's Kendal College end of term show.

Bringing the weird and wonderful Gomez Addams, his beloved wife, Morticia, Uncle Fester, and Lurch, to devilishly delightful life, the new musical has just been released for the amateur stage - and

KC's deputy head of Creative Arts Hilary Pezet was lightening quick to book it for the college’s June production.

The show has plenty of different characters, humour, quick fire jokes, lots of physical comedy, and a good storyline, all wrapped up in glitzy Hollywood style.

"Definitely a challenge," says Hilary. "But I wanted to do something different.”

Hilary has a knack of getting the best out of her students and is a highly respected name in theatrical circles.

Born in Scarborough but brought up in Ayrshire, Scotland, and then living in Windermere from the age of 14, she always wanted to act: "At the age of 12 I wrote to every drama school in the country asking if they would take me. A lovely lady, from the Royal Scottish Conservatoire wrote back giving me advice - wait until I was 18, she said.”

"I was in nearly every amateur production going in Scotland and I toured. My most memorable moments were playing Anne in Anne of Green Gables, being a member of The National and Scottish Youth Theatre and winning the Blackpool Festival Cup for Shakespeare. I also auditioned for the role of Annie in the very first production of Annie in The West End - I was close but not close enough."

"I can never think of a time when it was not my ambition to be an actor. I was so driven that my school (Windermere St Annes) had to make me fill in a UCAS form as I never considered that LAMDA would not take me at 18. For my audition I dressed as a character with a long black skirt, my hair in a ballet bun and a pair of Mary Quant boots. I looked fabulous, but totally wrong, and choose an extract from The Seagull and Look Back in Anger - classic plays which a young actor needs a lot of guidance to get right.

"I didn’t get in and to my 18-year-old self it was a disaster soon remedied by that back up UCAS form, thanks to Miss Gunning.

"My experience is one of the reasons that I spend a lot of time working with young actors to make the right choices for auditions as it’s make-or break in two minutes.”

Hilary went on to university and eventually a place at the Royal Welsh School of Speech and Drama to study acting.

Her first paid acting job was with her own theatre company (MBTC) touring productions in North Wales; her second was for the BBC acting in a short story for radio where she played a 16 year old Scottish girl living in Wales. Her accent, she says, “was an asset.”

Work as an actor was supplemented by waiting on at an Italian restaurant.

However, a life-changing moment came after one particular audition.

"I was in a production of a new play, The Fighter at the Edinburgh Festival and it was getting a lot of attention. Nigel Pavaro from Coronation Street saw the play and invited me to audition with Philip Hedley of Stratford East Theatre, my dream job.

“I was down to the last two actors but couldn’t play a musical instrument - for one minute only - so I lost the role. The experience of getting so close sent me off to Australia to have a break and plan and where I ‘accidentally’ fell in love with an Australian, Mike, who was also at a life crossroads having just climbed Everest.”

They've been married now for 25 years and have two children, Jessica, an emerging film maker and Louis, who is wading through his GCSEs.

Next in the spotlight was an exciting new attraction being developed at Bowness.

“I was walking past a hoarding which announced “coming soon - The World of Beatrix Potter.’”

“I knew this place could be important to me - and I enquired about jobs."

Following an interview in a laundry shed she was offered the role of BP's deputy manager. "It was the most magical job I could have imagined creating an award-winning exhibition and meeting one of my best friends Richard Foster (now the chief executive of Kendal's Brewery Arts Centre).

"Roger and Charlotte, the inspiration behind the organisation, added a theatre and I became its first manager. “This took me away from performing but I never looked back or regretted it for a moment.”

Fourteen years on the wind of change was blowing in Hilary's direction once more – this time towards education.

“After creating festivals and working with artists from Alan Rickman to Victoria Wood and companies from The National Theatre to Edward Hall’s Propeller, I needed new challenges; saw an advert for teaching performing arts at Kendal College that required industry experience and thought that would be fun for two years.”

Ten years later and Hilary is still there, nurturing future stars of stage and screen.

"The students that I teach at Kendal College are the reason that I teach. They come from diverse backgrounds and a diverse geographical spread but when they come together in a production they show my values: to aim for professionalism in performance and always, always exceed what is expected of young actors.

"I want audiences to watch a Kendal College production and to be talking about it the next day and be booking again."

Such is her dedication to the 'craft' she spent two years between 2011-2013 whizzing up and down each week to London and the Royal Central School of Speech and drama for a masters degree in actor training and coaching to train professional actors: "That was an amazing experience. I needed to refresh my skills and focus on what I believe makes a ‘good actor.’ The course gave me the freedom to explore and to work with leading theatre practitioners from around the world."

Animal Farm, Our House and Sunshine on Leith are just some of KC's recent major successes, all staged at Kendal's Brewery.

“It has taken ten years to build our outstanding reputation with a dedicated team of key people, Matt Burke, Kerry Bland, Alisun Pawley, Clare Eccles and Michael Denny, who shared the vision. Principal, Graham Wilkinson, has always believed in the department and from my first ‘moan’ about performance spaces he’s worked tirelessly to match the buildings to my ambitions. The most recent building project will complete in 2015 and will give us even more dedicated performing arts spaces.”

Hilary has become one of the most influential people in the region’s performing arts world.

But who was the biggest influence on her?

“The approach to teaching holistically at St Anne’s, through the guidance of Michael Jenkins, has stayed with me through life. His understanding that everyone needed to be seen as an individual given time, encouragement and freedom to grow is an educational mantra that I feel is being lost in secondary education.”