AVENUE Q! ILLEGAL! IN ARGENTINA! AND WITHOUT PUPPETS!

[Not Barker, Todd.]

I don't know if this has been posted before (I did a search, but these clips were added to YT a year ago) but . . .

I was surfing YouTube when I cam across clips of an illegal school production of Avenue Q in Argentina (in English) without any puppets. The humans are dressed up as the puppets. Blue face paint and everything.

The Internet Is For Porn
http://tinyurl.com/yofo2l

Everyone's A Little Bit Racist
http://tinyurl.com/2su5pb

On the bright side, I found them talented and endearing.

[Just_John]

Well maybe they didn't charge money for it which would make it legal, I think. I may be wrong about that since the rights had not been released yet I believe. But if they only did those two songs it wouldn't be illegal, but I doubt that't the case since they built that set.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Oh my God, I really like it.
Of course they sorta miss the point with AVENUE Q being a send-up of Sesame Street, but I think it works in its own right.
The girl who plays Kate is pretty good, the poor girl playing Christmas Eve sounds like she had a bad cold, but generally I really really enjoyed it. The only one I openly disliked was the person playing Gary Coleman.

[Bryan With A Why]

"A Q Argentina, the chains of the puppets..."



...sorry.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Wow, that is completely illegal.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Sorry for the ignorant question but copyrights extend to other nations, right?
For some reason I find this a lot less offensive and problematic than the clips of the illegal production of CHICAGO that used an exact replica of Reinking's direction/choreography for the revival.

[blaxx]

Yes they are, but amateurs run into the problem of rights being licensed in English only (they don't have the right to translate), and that is pretty useless for a lot of places. And as right holders won't bother going to Nowhere, Argentina to sue a production made with twenty pesos, a lot of these are around.

[walkedthroughmany]

Did they really change...

"bigotry has never been exclusively white"
to
"Michael Jackson never been exclusively white"?

Because that's what it sounds like to me.

[Not Barker, Todd.]

That's what it sounds like to me.

"Oh my God, I really like it.
Of course they sorta miss the point with AVENUE Q being a send-up of Sesame Street, but I think it works in its own right."

I totally agree ray.

[BroadwayBound062]

I also like it almost better without the puppets haha. ALMOST...I don't know the legal problems but I actually really enjoyed those clips!

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Yes, I did notice that too, which I hated. Like I said, I enjoyed this but I absolutely hate it when people change an author's original lyrics to something they think is better (80% of the cases the original lyrics are much better, the other 20% refers to some awful lyricists found on Broadway today-aka Tim Rice, Leslie Bricusse, George Stiles, and Anthony Drewe.

[Not Barker, Todd.]

On a similar note, I recently thought of a funny (IMO) variation on "Porn"

"Why you think the net was born?
GORE WANTS PORN!"

[keen on kean]

Not legal, even if no admission was charged. A license to perform must be granted, and if the owner wants to let a free production perform without a fee that's up to the owner.

Talented cast, but agree that it doesn't really work without puppets.

[puppetman2]

A bit off subject, but I saw a production of CARNIVAL with people doing the puppet roles. Completely ruined the central idea that Paul IS the puppets.

If a show is designed and written to include puppets a hack director has no right to eliminate them.

[Urban]

I am positive I saw more then those two clips a few weeks ago.

What suprises me is the audience still laughs at the jokes even though for the life of me some of those jokes barely translate outside of New York let alone Argentina.

[shesamarshmallow]

The girl who's playing Kate sounds exactly like Lilly from Johnny and the Sprites...

[theaterdude87]

oh yeah i saw this like a year ago. its hysterical and 100% illegal. i have a joke with my friends because they did wedding singer also...and it was like from the people who brought you Avenida Q and Los Singer de Wedding comes 'Illegally Blonde'...sadly they took all the LB videos off.

[suicidalmickeymouse]

THIS! IS! REALLY COOL! THANK! YOU!

Dude, what's with the mid sentence exclamation points in the title?

Other than that, it is quite cool....really odd w/o puppets though.

[thevolleyballer]

I love the slight accent you can detect in Princeton and Trekkie. It's hysterical.

[BroadwayPenguin2]

Um.. Is it just me, or is Gary Coleman in blackface?
Also, his voice was... ouch.

Hahaha. I love that they added an ensemble....

[DMsquared2]

BroadwayPenguin2, I think you're right about Gary Coleman because I thought the same thing!

Gotta love that school-musical-box-step-choreography.

And they might as well just lip-synced to the cast recording because they're all trying to sound exactly like the original cast.

[broadwayfan7]

I like it!

[acrocksyo]

I love it!

The singing is pretty good(minus the blackface Gary Coleman!), and it works without the puppets too!

[Mattbrain]

It's gone. Thanks a lot, Music Theatre International...not!

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Well, I'm sure the thread about it on BWW didn't help.