Evelyn C. McDonald
Arts & Culture Reporter
August 24, 2017 8:00 a.m.
Last Sunday I went to see “Avenue Q” and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is justifiably R rated. Don’t even think of taking teenagers as you might have some explaining to do. There are a number of things in the play that would be outrageous if they were not done in song and with puppets. Where to start?
The show covers such topics as racism, sex, friendship, and finding a job when you majored in English. A young man moves into a rental apartment on Avenue Q, having started at Avenue A and worked his way down to Q before finding something he could afford. He meets an eclectic group, most of whom are looking for jobs, meaningful relationships, and friends.
The cast deserves a big hand. They have complicated dance footwork to do and they also have to make their puppets move to match their speeches. To me that’s sort of like trying to rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time. There are monsters as well as humans among the cast. The two monsters are Kate Monster and Trekkie Monster. Trekkie, played by Juan Luis Ocharan, sounded so much like the monsters on the Muppet Show that he must have had no voice left at the end of each performance. Julie Harrington as Kate Monster had a lovely voice and sang one of the best ballads of the show.
On the human side, Jonathan Leonard played Princeton, the boy with the degree in English and the sometime boyfriend of Kate Monster. Sade Crosby played Gary Coleman and got a lot of laughs out of that name and references to her TV career. She had a couple of dancing sequences that were great.
Gary Baker and David Evans Scott played Nicky and Rod, two roommates who manage to be oblivious to the way they annoy each other. Adina Pavlesich is Lucy (aka Lucy T. Slut), the vamp of the show. Jocelyn Geronimo and Craig Wickless played Christmas Eve and Brian, the only couple through most of the show. Rounding out the cast were Toni D’Amico as Kate Monster’s employer, Mrs. T, and Sebastian Gagliardi and Jennifer O’Brien as the two Bad Idea Bears.
I would be remiss not to mention the orchestra. Either they managed to house a full scale orchestra behind the stage or they were superhuman musicians. The score is lively and topical. Can you imagine someone writing a song around the word ‘Schadenfreude’? Hats off to Lee Hamby, the Director, and Benjamin Beck, the Musical Director. And to the Stage Manager Diana Herman who must have had her hands full managing backstage.
Evelyn McDonald moved to Fernandina Beach from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. in 2006. Evelyn is vice-chair on the Amelia Center for Lifelong Learning and is on the Dean’s Council for the Carpenter Library at the UNF. Ms. McDonald has MS in Technology Management from the University of Maryland’s University College and a BA in Spanish from the University of Michigan.