Overview
Introduction
Avenue Q is a musical comedy featuring puppets and human actors with music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx and book by Jeff Whitty. The show won Best Musical, Book, and Score at the 2004 Tony Awards. The show was directed by Jason Moore with puppets designed and built by original cast member Rick Lyon. Avenue Q has received many favorable reviews for its approach on topics like racism, homosexuality, and Internet pornography.
The show first opened in 2003 at the Vineyard Theatre co-produced by the Vineyard Theatre and The New Group. In July of that same year the show moved to the John Golden Theatre on Broadway. Avenue Q would go on to play over 2,500 performances, ranking 24th on the list of longest running shows in Broadway history, before moving to New World Stages. Its final off-Broadway performance was on the evening of May 26, 2019, and many former cast members were in the audience, as were the show's two creators. International tours have been conducted in Germany, England and Hong Kong. A school-friendly script has been produced.
The principal cast includes four puppeteers and three human actors. The puppets, Princeton, Kate, Nicky, and others, are played by unconcealed puppeteers alongside costumed human actors. The show's format is a parody of PBS's Sesame Street.
