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Avenue Q is an Tony award-winning musical that was conceived by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, who wrote the music and lyrics. The book is by Jeff Whitty. Most of the characters in the show are puppets operated by actors onstage. The set depicts several tenements on a rundown street in an "outer borough" of New York City. Both the live characters and puppet characters sing, and short animated video clips are played as part of the story. The characters who are not puppets relate to the puppets, rather than to the actors holding them. The puppets also speak directly to each other and never to the actors operating them. During the course of the show, a puppet character may be operated by more than one of the actor-operators, although the same actor creates the voice for a particular puppet even if he or she is not holding the puppet at the time.
The show is largely inspired by (and is in the style of) Sesame Street. Several characters are recognizably parodies of classic Muppet characters. For example, the roommates Rod and Nicky are versions of Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie, and Trekkie Monster is based on Cookie Monster. However, the characters are in their twenties and thirties and face adult problems instead of those faced by pre-schoolers. The puppets and other characters use profanity, and many of the songs concern adult themes. A recurring theme is the central character's search for a "purpose". Toward the end of the show, he helps another character achieve her goal and decides that searching for his purpose is less important than living "for now."
After an Off-Broadway opening, The show moved to Broadway in 2003 and won several Tony Awards, including the award for Best Musical. It is still running, as of May 2007. The show has spawned a 2005 Las Vegas production, a 2006 West End production and various foreign productions. A U.S. National Tour is scheduled.
The show is explicitly an homage to the PBS children's television program Sesame Street. Marx and the puppet designer and original cast member, Rick Lyon, previously worked for Sesame Street, as have the other puppeteers in the original cast. However, unlike Sesame Street, Avenue Q openly addresses adult topics such as racism, infidelity, and masturbation; in fact, because of its adult language and content and "full puppet nudity" (including simulated sex between puppets), the show specifically disclaims any connection to the Children's Television Workshop or The Jim Henson Company. In an interview with Britain's The Times, addressing the question of potential conflicts with Henson, Marx claimed, “During early previews in the States we invited Jim Henson's widow and children and they could see that what we were doing was a homage and love letter to 'Sesame Street.'”[1]
The musical opened off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre in March 2003 (where it won that season's Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical). It then opened on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre on July 31 2003 and is still running. It won three 2004 Tony Awards, including the Tony Award for Best Musical, despite strong competition from the very successful musical Wicked. The original production was directed by Jason Moore and choreographed by Ken Roberson. The puppets were designed and constructed by original cast member Rick Lyon. The musical supervision, orchestration and arrangements for Avenue Q and its cast album are by Stephen Oremus.
Princeton, a recent college graduate, is looking for an affordable apartment in New York City ("What Do You Do with a BA in English"). At Avenue Q, he meets a group of neighbors: Kate Monster, a single assistant kindergarten teacher; Nicky and Rod, two long-time roommates; Brian, an unemployed comedian; Christmas Eve, Brian's Japanese fiancée, who is a therapist but has no clients; and Gary Coleman, former child star of the TV show Diff'rent Strokes, now the apartment superintendent. They all complain ("It Sucks to Be Me"), and all agree that Gary's lot sucks the most. Princeton takes an apartment, and everyone welcomes him to the block.
Rod is reading a book about "musicals of the 1940s," when he is interrupted by Nicky, who wants to share a story about a gay man he met on the Subway. Rod gets defensive at the mention of homosexuality, and Nicky assures his roommate that he would have no problem accepting Rod ("If You Were Gay"). The job that Princeton had lined up is eliminated and he needs a purpose in life. He finds a penny minted in his birthyear – a lucky omen ("Purpose"). Everyone explains their purpose in life (Gary thinks he has already experienced his purpose). Kate says that she wanted to go to a school especially for monsters. When Princeton asks whether she and Trekkie Monster are related, Kate is offended at the implication that all monsters must be related, calling him racist. Princeton notes that her dream of a monster school is also exclusionary, and all agree that ("Everyone's a Little Bit Racist"). Princeton is approached by the Bad Idea Bears, two innocent-looking cuddly little teddy bears who encourage him to spend his money on beer.
Kate receives a phone call from her boss, Mrs. Thistletwat, telling her that she has heart replacement surgery the next day and needs Kate to teach the morning class, and that Kate may teach on whatever subject she likes. Kate plans to teach about the Internet. Trekkie Monster and the other men tell her that ("The Internet is for Porn"). Princeton comes over to deliver a ("Mix Tape"), confirming her suspicions that he has a crush on her. Princeton invites Kate to the Around the Clock Café (a well known East Village haunt) that night.
At the café, Brian performs the opening act ("I'm Not Wearing Underwear Today") and introduces Lucy the Slut, who sings ("Special"). Kate refrains from drinking, as she has the important teaching assignment in the morning. Kate and Princeton are ready to go home, but the Bad Idea Bears suggest that they have some harmless Long Island Iced Teas (Absinthe Daiquiris in the London show) and play drinking games. While Kate retrieves a round of drinks, Lucy tells Princeton that when he's ready for a real woman, she'll be around. The Bad Idea Bears convince the tipsy Kate and Princeton to go home together and have sex. The tenants ask Gary Coleman to tell the wild lovers to quiet down, but Coleman says ("You Can Be as Loud as the Hell You Want [When You're Making Love]"). A sleepless Rod hears Nicky talking in his sleep about his attraction to Rod, who is jubilant that his secret crush is mutual. However, he wakes to discover that it was he who had been dreaming. Meanwhile, Kate and Princeton lie in bed happily. Princeton gives Kate his lucky penny to let her know how much she means to him ("Fantasies Come True").
The next day, Mrs. Thistletwat calls: Kate has missed the morning class that she was supposed to teach. Mrs. Thistletwat calls monsters lazy. Angry, Kate quits her job. Princeton asks Kate to be his girlfriend and to accompany him to Brian and Christmas Eve's wedding. At the wedding, the neighbors ask Nicky whether Rod is gay. Nicky confirms that Rod is a "closeted homosexual"; Rod overhears him and vehemently denies this – they simply have not met ("My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada"). Rod throws Nicky out of their apartment. Princeton, scared of commitment after witnessing the wedding, breaks up with Kate, asking her to be friends. Kate is defiant: ("There's a Fine, Fine Line") between love and a waste of time.
Princeton sits alone in his apartment two weeks later. He is in debt, unemployed, alone, and still purposeless ("It Sucks to Be Me" [Reprise]). The Bad Idea Bears suggest hanging himself. The neighbors take Princeton outside to remind him that ("There is Life Outside Your Apartment"). Princeton decides to take Lucy the Slut home with him. Kate is jealous, and Christmas Eve explains that the reason Kate is angry is that she loves Princeton ("The More You Ruv Someone"). Kate stops by to give Princeton an invitation to meet her at the top of the Empire State Building. He is in the shower, so she leaves the letter, which Lucy promptly destroys. Nicky has stayed with neighbors since he was kicked out, but they are all fed up with his sloppiness and throw him out on the street. Nicky begs for money. Gary Coleman admits that he cannot help feeling a sense of ("Schadenfreude") at Nicky's painful situation.
Princeton, looks for Lucy who has left without saying goodbye. Kate, angry that Princeton seems to have stood her up, throws the penny that he gave her from the top of the Empire State Building. Far below, Lucy, passing by, is hit in the head by the penny and knocked into a coma. At the hospital, Kate and Princeton attempt to work out their problems, but Princeton is still not ready for commitment. Rod, depressed, consults with Christmas Eve, who comforts him. Everyone ponders what it would be like to return to happier times ("I Wish I Could Go Back to College").
Nicky, begging in the street, tells Princeton that he should be thinking about other people. Struck with inspiration, he determines to raise the money to build Kate's monster school. Nicky likewise realizes that, to get back to his apartment, he needs to help Rod by finding him a boyfriend. The neighbors raise some money ("The Money Song"), but not much. Trekkie Monster, finding out what the appeal is for, remembers his hellish school days and donates ten million dollars that he earned by investing in pornography ("School for Monsters").
Kate is delighted with the new school. Brian has a new job and Christmas Eve has a steady client (Rod), so they are leaving Avenue Q for the Lower East Side. Rod reveals, to no one's surprise, that he is gay. He invites Nicky back in. Nicky has found a boyfriend for Rod named Ricky, who looks just like Nicky, only more muscular. Meanwhile, the Bad Idea Bears have found Scientology, and Lucy has recovered to become a born-again Christian. Kate is impressed that Princeton has made her monster school a reality. Princeton asks her for a second chance, and Kate says they'll take it a day at a time ("There's a Fine, Fine Line" [Reprise]).
A new kid, just out of college with a BA in English, comes to look at Brian and Christmas Eve's for-rent apartment, and Princeton has a revelation: he must pass on everything he's learned. His purpose may be to put all his knowledge into a show. Everyone shoots the idea down, and the kid does not want Princeton's wisdom. Princeton worries that he may never find his purpose, but the others encourage him to cheer up. Life may be bad at the moment, but everything in life is only ("For Now.")
Act I
Act II
So far, there are five Avenue Q songs that are not in the show itself and one song cut from the London production.
Cast replacements
On September 8 2005, a second production of Avenue Q opened up at the Wynn Las Vegas hotel and casino in Las Vegas. This production had an "exclusive" contract that precluded Avenue Q tours within North America. A new 1,200 seat theater was built specially for the show. There were some differences from the Broadway production, including a new reprise of "It Sucks To Be Me" for Princeton at the top of Act Two, some new orchestrations, a trimmed "The Money Song," and a new rock arrangement of "There Is Life Outside Your Apartment", as well as a few jokes aimed at Las Vegas audiences. Most of these changes have since been incorporated into the Broadway version..
In mid-January 2006, the show was cut to 90 minutes, removing the intermission and trimming 10-15 minutes of material. The Las Vegas changes included the following:
Steve Wynn promoted the show heavily, including dressing twenty cabs in orange fuzz to promote the show. They had "Q" in white letters etched in front. Though the show was reported to have been profitable, it closed on May 28, 2006, after only a 9 month run. The closing of the show in Las Vegas released the Avenue Q producers from their exclusivity agreement, opening the way for a U.S. national tour or other U.S. productions.
A production premiered in June 2006 in London's West End at the Noël Coward Theatre (Avenue Q is its first production since it changed its name from the Albery Theatre), produced by Cameron Mackintosh. The show previewed on June 1 2006 and opened on 28 June 2006. Avenue Q is currently booking in London until 26th January, 2008. It was only the third production of the musical in the world, and the first outside the United States. The production unveiled a new logo for the show (visible on the production's UK website), presumably since the original logo, styled after the New York City Subway system graphics, would have little resonance with a London audience; however both logos are used.
The most noticeable initial change was that Gary Coleman was assumed not to be well known enough for a UK audience, and the character was changed to "Gary - that famous kid from TV" and cast as a male actor instead of a female. This also caused a rewrite of the orchestration's nod to Diff'rent Strokes in "It Sucks To Be Me". After audience polling, the character's name was changed back to Gary Coleman, and the original dialogue of his catchphrase: "Whatchoo talkin' about Willis?" has been reinstated. His line in "It Sucks To Be Me" is however different from the Broadway Show, stating - "I was the cutest little black kid on TV. I made a zillion dollars that my parents stole from me. My life was over when I hit puberty. But I'm here, fixing the toilets, on Avenue Q!"
Also changed in "It Sucks To Be Me" is Christmas Eve's line 'Tried to work in Chinese Restaurant' instead of 'Korean Deli'. There are slight alterations all the way through however, for example 'Those stupid Polacks' in 'Everyone's A Little Bit Racist' to 'Those French people are such assholes'. Lopez and Marx stated this change was not for any cultural reason, they just thought it was funnier. Similarly, at the beginning of intermission, an animation shows the word 'Intermission' colliding with 'val', leaving the more British 'Interval.' A few small bits of music were cut, for example in the middle of 'Schadenfreude'.
Principal cast:
The first translated version of the musical opened on February 16 2007 in Stockholm, Sweden, at Maxim teatern, starring Jakob Stadell as Princeton/Rod, Cecilia Wrangel as Kate Monster/Lucy the Slut, and Fredrik Lycke as Nicky/Trekkie Monster/Bad Idea Bears.
The production played at the Savoy Theatre in Helsinki from February 23, 2007 to May 19, 2007.
The first North American tour is scheduled to begin in San Francisco on August 7, 2007.[2]. The tour dates and venues are available on the avenueq.com website. The complete tour cast and cities were announced on May 7, 2007.[3]. The principal cast will include, as Princeton/Rod: Robert McClure, as Kate Monster, Lucy the Slut & others: Kelli Sawyer, as Trekkie Monster, Nicky, Bear & others: Christian Anderson, as Gary Coleman: Carla Renata, as Brian: Cole Porter and as Christmas Eve: Angela Ai.
As stated in the Broadway Playbill, the scene is a fictional street located "in an outerborough of New York City." Manhattan, the center of New York City, has Avenues A, B, C, and D, making up the Alphabet City neighborhood (now considered part of the East Village). Some say Avenue Q is the hypothetical extension of that sequence: far from Manhattan, where the rents are actually affordable for recent college graduates..
Alternately, Avenue Q could be in the Midwood and Gravesend area of Brooklyn, where there are also Avenues A, B, C, etc. all the way up to Avenue Z, with a few exceptions. One of the exceptions is Avenue Q; the street between Avenue P and Avenue R is known as Quentin Road, named for the youngest son of President Theodore Roosevelt. The Q subway train, whose symbol used to be a Q in an orange circle resembling the Avenue Q logo, travels through this neighborhood, and the Kings Highway station is almost on Quentin Road. However, the authors have stated that Avenue Q is fictional and is not related to this or any other particular street.
On September 30, 2004, the day of the first Bush-Kerry presidential debate, on a stage set up in Times Square, the cast of Avenue Q presented their version of the debate, called Avenue Q&A, with portrait puppets of Bush and Kerry created by Rick Lyon. Eighteen television networks covered the event. Lyon operated the Bush puppet, while Jennifer Barnhart operated the Kerry puppet. Each puppet sang responses to questions from Avenue Q's concerned residents, and then the whole cast sang to the rain-drenched crowds to "Vote your heart!"
Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa puppets created by Lyon hosted the first few minutes of an episode of Live! with Regis and Kelly.. In addition, Rod and John Tartaglia doing "man-on-the-street"-style interviews on the 2005 CBS broadcast of the Macy's Day Parade. Rod and John also appeared alongside other Broadway stars in a World AIDS Day benefit concert of Pippin held at the Manhattan Center on November 29, 2004. Rod played "The Head".
In another World AIDS Day benefit, the original cast of Avenue Q and the cast of the recent Broadway revival of Fiddler On The Roof together presented a ten minute performance that was essentially a spoof of "Fiddler" called "Avenue Jew,". in which Trekkie Monster played the Fiddler Theme and, at its conclusion, ate the fiddle. In a sort of epilogue to Tevye's story, Tevye, his wife Golde, and his two remaining unwed daughters arrive on Avenue Jew, an area inhabited by Jewish puppets (the Q cast played Jewish versions of their usual characters). Avenue Jew is also home to some human Jews such as Brian and Hannukah Eve. The human Jews are fed up with the puppet Jews upstaging them constantly. Jewish-American Princeton arrives asking "What do you do with a B.A. in Yiddish?" One of Tevye's daughter's, Shprintze, falls in love with Princeton, but Tevye forbids their union. The Matchmaker sets Rod up with Lazar Wolf (Tevye is surprised Lazar is gay). After a brief interior monologue, Tevye finally consents to Princeton and Shprintze's marriage. Rod and Lazar Wolf also wish to be wed, so they decide to ask permission from the Tsar, who just happens to be a puppet Bush, who forbids gay marriage. Ben Brantley interrupts, asking where the real Jewish people in the cast are, and the company finish with a rousing finale, telling us that "everyone's a little bit Jewish" and "in theatre you can be whatever you want to be."
In November 2005, the Avenue Q website held a "One Night Stand" contest, calling for people to register their puppets and see whose was most worthy to be put next to Rick Lyon's. Eventually, the contest narrowed to ten entrants, and later to three, at which point the worthiest puppet and puppeteer were voted on. Andrew MacDonald Smith and his puppet Maurice Tipo won, and on March 10, 2006, Smith and his puppet appeared onstage during a show performance, appearing in the café scene, singing the opening song and curtain call.
In July 2006, several members of Avenue Q appeared for the opening ceremonies of the Gay Games in Chicago. In October 2006, Jonathan Root and Princeton presented the award for Best Young Adult Novel at the Quill Awards. In November 2006, the London cast appeared on the BBC Children in Need show and performed "It Sucks To Be Me".. In December 2006, the London cast performed on the Royal Variety Performance and performed "It Sucks To Be Me", "For Now" and "Special", in which 'Lucy the Slut' suggested through lyrics and dialogue she was making a pass at Charles, Prince of Wales.
The original cast recording was made on August 10, 2003, at Right Track Studio A in New York City, produced by Grammy Award winner Jay David Saks for RCA Victor. The album contains almost all of the music from the show, with the original Broadway cast and band. The Band members are Gary Adler: Conductor/Piano/Synthesizer; Mark Hartmann: Synthesizer/Associate Conductor; Patience Higgins: Alto Sax, Flute, Clarinet; Brian Koonin: Guitar and Banjo; Mary Ann McSweeney: Acoustic and Electric Bass; and Michael Croiter: Drums and Percussion. The album was released on October 6, 2003. It has been in the top ten of the Billboard Top Cast Album Chart ever since the chart's launch on January 12, 2006.[4] It was nominated for the Musical Show Album category in the 2004 Grammy Awards.[5]
The cast album presents the music in the order in which it appears in the show. The only items omitted are short, and all except one are instrumentals: “The Wedding” (11B), “Party Music (11C), “Princeton’s Nightmare” (12B), Entr’acte (13A), Princeton’s reprise of “It Sucks To Be Me” (a later addition at the start of Act 2), “Empire State Crossovers” (16A) and the intros and playoffs to several songs (details and numbering from the complete piano-conductor score, as revised on July 28, 2003). Though not included on the cast album, the cut song “Tear It Up And Throw It Away” was recorded by Stephanie D’Abruzzo and Rick Lyon and issued for a time inside copies of the souvenir program book. Other recorded songs by members of the Broadway cast include three which are not part of the show: "Rod's Dilemma" (which can be heard on avenueq.com), and two Christmas songs: "Rod's Christmas" (on Carols For A Cure, Vol. 5) and "Holi-Daze" (on Carols For A Cure, Vol. 8). See "Other Avenue Q Songs," above, for more information.
Souvenir/Coffee table book
A souvenir book is sold at the Theater Store in the theatres showing Avenue Q. The book is hardbound and covered in orange fuzz, like the fuzz shown on the logo.[6] The book contains photos and drawings of characters and scenes from the show, lyrics and the complete libretto.
Broadway production
The soundtrack received a Grammy Award nomination
London production
Contents
