Jennifer Barnhart to Work with Gateway Center for Performing Arts Students on AVENUE Q

Gateway Center for Performing Arts' Youth Theatre Company will finish it's 2015/2016 Season with AVENUE Q School Edition, performed by actors in grades 9 - 12. Actors will spend three days with Jennifer Barnhart, who will guide them on how to create authentic performances through puppets.

Barnhart was a proud member of the award-winning (Outer Critics Circle) Original Broadway Cast of the multi-Tony Award-winning AVENUE Q, remaining with the show during its entire six-year run on Broadway. She has puppet coached and consulted on several productions of AVENUE Q around the country, and she directed a production of it for Adirondack Theatre Festival. Jennifer's puppetry work also extends to children's television, where she has performed on Sesame Street, Between the Lions, and Bear in the Big Blue House, to name a few. Jennifer has also worked as a 'human', on Law & Order: SVU and in regional theatres such as Goodspeed Opera House, the Arden Theatre, and Alabama Shakespeare Festival, for which she recently played Lady Macbeth and Veronica in GOD OF CARNAGE.

In this coming of age story, Princeton, a recent college grad with a BA in English, struggles to find his purpose. Told with both live actors and puppets, the style is a throwback to programs from childhood but addresses topics more relevant to young adults struggling to find jobs, find love, and find themselves. Adapted for teenagers, this hilarious, PG-13 musical shines a satirical and heartfelt light on what it means to enter adulthood.

Visit www.gcpastl.org/aveq for more information.