In 2004, Avenue Q, music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx and book by Jeff Whitty, won Best Musical, Book, and Score at the Tony Awards. At its heart it’s a love story, but the book and lyrics are a hilariously wicked skewering of the human condition. By puppets. Songs like Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist, and The Internet is for Porn are the two you may have heard of, but the entire show is the honey badger of indecency - because Avenue Q don’t care. The politically incorrect musical is one of the funniest things I have ever seen, and this production, now playing at Revolution Stage Company is so very, very good.
Only three characters are not actors/puppeteers: Christmas Eve (Christine Michele) is the hilarious Japanese "therapist" - terrific performance by Michele. The second non-puppet character is her comedian-wanna-be boyfriend, Brian (Steve Giboney) who will never get a set at The Comedy Store, and is "hen-pecked" by Christmas Eve. And finally we have Gary Coleman (Alisha Bates), the child actor, who has fallen on hard times and is now the superintendent at the apartment building on Avenue Q (the cheap part of town too). I knew Bates’ voice to be a revelation, but she’s also got a great grasp on comedy. Wonderful work by all three actors.
The character puppets: Princeton (Patrick Wallace) is our protagonist in search of a purpose, Kate Monster (Phylicia Mason) is employed as a teacher’s assistant, and is in search of love. She and Princeton fall for each other until Princeton’s mind nags at him to find his purpose. Instead he finds Lucy The Slut (Jana Giboney). Wallace and Mason have great chemistry, and Wallace has a strong tenor. Mason shows off all her comedic chops to great success, and Jana Giboney has a voice so buttery I could listen to her sing or talk all day long.
Rod (Samuel Moffatt) is a gay Republican banker hiding the fact that he is gay while his roommate Nicky (Joseph Portoles) is trying to be supportive but ends up sorta outing him instead. Moffatt performing My Girlfriend, Who Lives In Canada nearly broke me, and the recurrence of Portoles and Kelly McDaniel, who also plays Nicky's second hand, as the Bad Ideas Bears were always a delight. Arballo brought down the house with The Internet is For Porn.
The entire cast is local, and Director James Owens mined gold. Combined with his staging and attention to character detail, he deserves a standing O - which reminds me - there is graphic (and hilarious) puppet sex, so it’s not for the kiddos.
The talent got an assist from the technicals. Mariah Pryor’s colorful lighting design played off Steve Giboney’s clever brokedown Sesame Street tenement set punctuated by Nate Cox's projection designs. And some big kudos to Musical Director Stephen Hulsey for creating such fat vocals fully suppported by Kelly McGuire’s sound design. You should also know that those puppets are not rented. Laura Stearns, who directed Charles Dickens Writes A Christmas Carol, built those puppets from scratch. There are also a couple more characters in the show that she's responsible for, but I'm not going to ruin that moment.
This was hands down the most fun I’ve had as an audience member in … ever? That’s not to negate any of the terrific productions I have seen throughout the years, and there have been some phenomenal ones. Some right here in our valley. But I think Avenue Q is one of the smartest shows ever conceived. It allows you to laugh at things that are oh so wrong - and for three short hours you don’t have to worry you're going to say or do the wrong thing because the cast does it all for you. The irreverence is so cathartic you'll laugh at yourself. Like the song tells us, Everyone's a Little Racist. And it's true. But for as gut-bustingly, irreverently funny as this show is, there is still a message of kindness through awareness tucked in there to tie it all up.
*Photography by Jim Cox
Cast
Trekkie Monster/Newcomer - Miguel Arballo
Christmas Eve - Christine Michele
Gary Coleman - Alisha Bates
Lucy The Slut/Mrs. T - Jana Giboney
Brian - Steve Giboney
Kate Monster - Phylicia Mason
Bad Idea Bear/Second Hand - Kelly McDaniel
Rod - Samuel Moffatt
Nicky/Bad Idea Bear - Joseph Portoles
Princeton -Patrick Wallace
Production
Director: James Owens
Musical Director: Stephen Hulsey
Executive Producer: Gary Powers
Technicals:
Lighting design: Mariah Pryor
Set Design: Steve Giboney
Sound Design: Kelly Mcguire
Production Stage Manager: Gustavo Sanchez
Puppets created by Laura Stearns
Sound Tech: Alex Danson
Costume Designer: Emma Bibo
Projection design: Nate Cox
Reader Reviews
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