The Puppet Masters

Stage

THE OLD GLOBE is about to present——ta da——a puppet show. This one, however, is quite unlike those offered at the Globe’s Balboa Park neighbor, the Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theatre. It’s Avenue Q, the adult-oriented musical that’s been boffo on Broadway since its 2003 opening and surprise 2004 Tony wins for outstanding musical, book and score——awards most predictors had consigned to megahit Wicked.

This is the West Coast debut of the show, and the Globe, anticipating strong ticket demand, is staging Avenue Q on our Broadway, in the venerable 1,466-seat Spreckels Theater (June 30– August 5). Globe executive director Louis Spisto terms the partnership “another milestone,” opening the possibility of future collaborations using the larger downtown house for popular Globe-sponsored works. “Avenue Q,” Spisto says, “has a distinctively downtown sensibility, and we think it is the perfect show for the Globe’s return to the Spreckels.” (After a 1978 fire razed the Old Globe, the Spreckels housed its 1978-79 winter season.)

Avenue Q, with its blend of live and puppet characters and video sequences imparting life lessons through song and dance, may resemble Sesame Street, but it’s in a far different section of town. For instance, the production bears the warning: “Full puppet nudity, not suitable for children.” And the lessons cover problems of sex, racism, unemployment and finding a purpose in life.

But any seriousness is swamped by spoofery. The show is hilarious and hopeful, full of pop culture references and urban hipness, more Simpsons than Sesame Street. Both those TV shows, along with South Park, provided the inspiration for Avenue Q, says Robert Lopez, who cocreated the show and wrote the music and lyrics with Jeff Marx. The book is by Jeff Whitty; Jason Moore directs.

Lopez met Marx at a musical theater workshop, and they teamed in some mildly successful projects for children. Yet their goal, Lopez says, was to write “a show where everyone laughed all the way through.” Then, he says, they saw the film South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut and were temporarily taken aback by the Matt Stone–Trey Parker smash. “We thought,” says Lopez, “maybe they had accomplished everything we wanted to do.”

Still, they persisted with their concept of Avenue Q, first intending it to be a TV cartoon show. But, Lopez says, when they tried out the songs at early workshop sessions, they realized from audience reaction it would work better as a stage production. They opened it in March 2003 off-Broadway, where it gathered glowing reviews and four extensions. Four months later, they moved it to its current home in the John Golden Theatre and grabbed the golden ring.

Avenue Q’s national tour begins after the local run. The circuit is later than usual for a Broadway hit because the producers decided to forgo a tour and sign an exclusive contract with Vegas mogul Steve Wynn to go into his then-new casino. Avenue Q didn’t mesh with casino-goers, however, so Wynn ended the run. “Vegas didn’t respond well to a full-length show with intermission,” Lopez says.

Vegas notwithstanding, several foreign Q productions have won acclaim and audiences. “It travels well,” Lopez says, “because young people all over the world have the same concerns. Our themes are pretty universal.”

NOTE:  Click here for a quick preview of Avenue Q!

A PRODUCTION with an open-ended run, It’s All in the Timing, is being presented by Ion Theatre at downtown’s Sixth Avenue Bistro. Ion is one of our city’s many small and mobile troupes offering impressive works at whatever space is available. And Timing, David Ives’ sprightly wordplay comedy, reprises an Ion favorite. The venue is a cabaret setting, so you can enjoy munchies and mochas with your mirth.

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