'Avenue Q' - A Naughty, Tuneful, Witty Delight

(Photo By Carol Rosegg)

AVENUE Q is one of the most joyous, melodic, carefree and yet thoughtful musicals to reach the boards in quite some time.

AVENUE Q may always be thought of by some as the musical that beat WICKED for the Tony award. There were complaints that the AVENUE Q team did some unfair campaigning, (shall we say,) at its Tony time; eventually winning awards widely predicted for WICKED.

I shall not comment further on AVENUE Q's Tony controversy. However, dear reader, each of this show's Tony awards was richly deserved.

The thing that impressed me most about AVENUE Q was its music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx. Their songs are, for the most part, instantly accessible, enjoyable, and I suspect some may prove to be unforgettable. You actually leave the theater, not humming a tune from the show, but humming TUNES from the show. This is between breaks of discussion of how clever, funny, heartwarming, daring and even nasty this musical's lyrics are.

In substance, AVENUE Q is a distant relative of The Lion King, television's SESAME STREET and many a yuppie sitcom in the mold of FRIENDS. The actor/singer/dancers in AVENUE Q also serve as the show's puppet masters. AVENUE Q is inhabited by human people, puppet people, and puppet "monsters." The inhabitants of AVENUE Q live on a block of homes where the superintendent is former child star Gary Coleman (finely played and sung by Carla Renata.)

The delicious opening number is "It Sucks To Be Me." There is a romance between a human puppet and a monster puppet, characters pondering their sexuality (being gay is certainly okay on AVENUE Q,) and even an ever horny, internet porn obsessed monster puppet.

Actually, there will be some who may find the raunchiness of AVENUE Q a bit much for their taste. However, for this critic, the wit, songs and the fact that the main raunchiness is puppet oriented; keep the show from ever reaching a point of vulgarity. Jeff Whitty's Tony winning book for AVENUE Q, is always pleasant, definitely charming, almost always witty, often quite funny, and at times, downright hilarious. He certainly keeps pace with the fresh, exciting, and infectious score provided by Lopez and Marx.

Angela Ai, David Benoit, Minglie Chen, Robert McClure, Cole Porter (yes, that's his name,) Carla Renata, and Kelli Sawyer all perform with great gusto and warmth under the steady but wisely gentle direction of Jason Moore.

It was a joy being at AVENUE Q tonight. To sum it up, skip Avenue O and P and go directly to AVENUE Q. AVENUE Q's final performance at Miami's Arsht Center is May 18.

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