For its new home at the Broward Center and presumably a new audience, Slow Burn Theatre Company is remounting a couple of popular shows from its former West Boca venue. And in the case of the current Avenue Q redo, again directed and choreographed with assurance by Patrick Fitzwater, the more casual and intimate environment of the Adbo River Room helps the subversive puppet show considerably.
From the opening animated visuals to the bouncy, lesson-laden songs to the ingratiating puppets – some of whom are of monster extraction – the uncredited inspiration of Sesame Street is more than evident. The fictional Avenue Q, an undesirable, but affordable section of Manhattan, contains a diverse community of young adults looking to find life’s purpose and realizing that their existence beyond the cushy confines of college is more complex than they were led to believe.
Still, even the characters’ downbeat thoughts are expressed with chipper glee, as the early ensemble complaint, “It Sucks To Be Me,” demonstrates. Composer-lyricists Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx somehow read our innermost thoughts with such pointed jingles as “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” and
“The Internet Is For Porn,” numbers which seemed shocking when Avenue Q premiered in 2003, but with time and familiarity now come off as musical comfort food.
Avenue Q is the little show that could, an unlikely Broadway hit that copped the best musical, score and book Tony Awards 12 years ago from stunned odds-on favorite Wicked. It ran for more than six years on Broadway, then downsized to off-Broadway where it continues to this day. If anyone is offended by the show, it was certainly not the Slow Burn crowd, which roared its approval of each taste-testing punchline and full puppet nudity sex act.
Rick Pena has been involved with Slow Burn since its inception, often designing costumes and taking the occasional supporting role. Here he is center stage as the voice and manipulation of puppet Princeton, an idealistic recent college grad, and Rod, a closeted gay Republican who has some evolving to do. Back from the earlier Slow Burn take on Avenue Q is the versatile Nicole Piro, who shadows demure kindergarten teacher-in-training Kate Monster and her opposite number, the overtly sexual Lucy T. Slut. Hubba-hubba.
Christian Vandepas, the production’s lone Equity member, does a variety of voices including Nicky, Rod’s unkempt roommate, and gruff Trekkie Monster, a softy at heart. Perhaps book writer Jeff Whitty’s loopiest notion was to make Gary Coleman – of Diff’rent Strokes fame – the superintendent of the Avenue Q tenement, played with full attitude and tool belt by Juanita B. Green.
If there is a disappointment in the cast it is Ann Marie Olson’s racial impersonation of Asian mental therapist Christmas Eve. Here’s hoping Slow Burn does not try to cast and produce Miss Saigon anytime soon.
As fans of Avenue Q know, the show ends with a rousing anthem, “For Now,” which lists various ills which have to be overcome in time. In 2003, the biggest woe was George Bush. With minor tinkering that the show’s authors would surely sanction, the lyric has become “Don Trump,” met with loud audience approval.
Sean McClelland’s urban landscape set and Manny Schvartzman’s recorded tracks were designed to travel, for after the Broward Center, this production hits the road, spreading mirth at Aventura Arts & Cultural Center and Delray Beach’s Crest Theatre and then on to Jacksonville. Not bad for a company less than seven years old.
AVENUE Q, Slow Burn Theatre Company, Abdo River Room at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 S.W. Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale. Through Sunday. $45. Call 954-462-0222.