Avenue Q, Austin Theatre Project, May 30 - June 16, 2013

By Brian Paul Scipione

Can You Show me How to Get to Avenue Q?

Long past are the days when musicals were solely the domain of prancing pirates and line dancing debutantes. The villains sang in baritone and the hero, a lilting tenor, as he won, lost and re-won the girl in different fantastical settings. There is the theme song, the hero’s lament, the song that exposes the girl’s conflicting feelings, the growling villain’s rant-song, and a choral effort by all the scrappy townsfolk who may help or hinder the hero. Oh yes, and a lot of love songs.

And though Avenue Q doesn’t stray too far from this formula it is part of the movement of modern musicals away from Disney-like, parentally approved, mores. Controversy and transgression has indubitably long been the territory of the dramatic arts, but singing about it joyfully has only come into the mainstream of Broadway during the last twenty years or so.

And Broadway loves it! Avenue Q won Tony Awards for best musical, best book, and best score in 2004. 2011’s Tony Award winning musical The Book of Mormon suggests that this isn’t going to change anytime too soon. Musicals have been tackling larger issues and using melody to express complex emotions since their inception. West Side Story is about gang warfare, murder, and racism. Yet it approaches these issues with kid gloves. The 1993 Tony Award winning musical Kiss of the Spider Woman was one of the first to include the grittiness and crudity that were attached to its themes on stage. In other words, it wasn’t afraid to try to make the audience cringe.

In the case of Avenue Q, this translates to onstage puppet sex. For this reason it is often billed as Sesame Street for adults. It isn’t out to change the world or hide its harsh realities from the audience. In the end it straddles the line between fun and message by introducing subjects like getting fired, being crushed by bills, and wanting companionship, and then dismissing them as things no one can do anything about.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

AVENUE Q, Austin Theatre Project at the Dougherty Arts Center, May 30 - June 16, 2013

[Austin Theatre Project, performing at the Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Rd. - click for map]

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Tickets $15 - $30 plus service fee at





 The Tony-winning musical AVENUE Q is the hilarious and heartfelt story of a bright-eyed college grad who comes to New York with big dreams and little money. He can only afford to live on Avenue Q but (good news!) his neighbors turn out to be a remarkably funny bunch of characters.

Imagine an adult version of "Sesame Street," with the preschool banter replaced with irreverent songs such as "It Sucks to Be Me," "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist," "The Internet Is For Porn," and "If You Were Gay." But don't let the light-hearted melodies and adorable puppets fool you... This is NOT your child's favorite street!

STARRING: Michelle Alexander, Isaac Arrieta, Matthew Burnett, R. Michael Clinkscales, Marett Hanes, Rachel Hoovler, June Julian, Ashley Laverty, Eric Meo

DIRECTED BY: Marco Bazan
MUSIC DIRECTOR/CONDUCTOR: David Blackburn
LIGHTING DESIGN: Taylor Whitmire
SOUND DESIGN: Sam Kokojko
SET DESIGN: David Blackburn

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Event AVENUE Q The Tony-winning musical AVENUE Q is the hilarious and heartfelt story of a bright-eyed college grad who comes to New York with big dreams and little money. He can only afford to live on Avenue Q but (good news!) his neighbors turn out to be a remarkably funny bunch of characters. Imagine an adult version of "Sesame Street," with the preschool banter replaced with irreverent songs such as "It Sucks to Be Me," "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist," "The Internet Is For Porn," and "If You Were Gay." But don't let the light-hearted melodies and adorable puppets fool you... This is NOT your child's favorite street! STARRING: Michelle Alexander Isaac Arrieta Matthew Burnett Rmichael Clinkscales Marett Hanes Rachel Hoovler June Julian Ashley Laverty Eric Meo DIRECTED BY: Marco Bazan MUSIC DIRECTOR/CONDUCTOR: David Blackburn LIGHTING DESIGN: Taylor Whitmire SOUND DESIGN: Sam Kokojko SET DESIGN: David Blackburn

A Raisin in the Sun, City Theatre, February 25 - March 21

Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun was a triumph for its 29-year-old author in 1959, winning the New York Drama Critics Circle award for best play. It opened career avenues in theatre and in the cinema for a cast that included Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Louis Gossett, Jr.

The play was a victory for African American arts, as well. Hansberry broke both the color barrier and the gender barrier in American theatre -- with a play based on her family's own experience with restrictive real estate covenants in Chicago, a struggle vindicated by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1940.

Lisa Jordan's production at Austin's City Theatre acknowledges that history but is not burdened by it. She and the cast find the strength of Hansberry's story where it resides: in the resilience of family.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Images: A Raisin in the Sun, City Theatre, February 25 - March 21

Andy Berkovsky's images of cast of A Raisin in the Sun, received directly:

“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” - Langston Hughes

A recent widow, Lena Younger wants to use her husband's insurance money to buy a home for her family, freeing them from the cramped tenement in which they live. Her son, Walter Lee is determined to invest the money in a business - an opportunity for him to be his own man. Lena refuses; in her eyes a house is a sturdy thing to build a dream on. But when a white representative of the neighborhood "welcoming committee" presents them with an offer to buy them out of their home, the dream quickly becomes a nightmare. The Younger family attempts to find his or her place amidst a number of difficult situations and Walter Lee for the first time begins to value what money can’t buy, and in the process achieves a new level of self respect and pride.

[MacArthur Moore as Walter Lee Younger, Michelle Alexander as his mother Lean]

See more images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .