There's a place where monsters, Gary Coleman, and puppet sex coexist, and it's all brought to you by the letter Q.
Every Wednesday through Friday, the MusicalFare Theatre at the Daemen College campus is playing the Broadway hit Avenue Q. The show was one of the longest running shows on Broadway, and has won the Tony Award for Best Musical.
Director Doug Weyand was drawn to the musical not because of its accolades, but its material. Avenue Q parodies Sesame Street by using puppets alongside live actors onstage and the familiar stoop setting. Weyand found staying faithful to the material difficult, but rewarding.
"It is one of the funnier Broadway musicals that have come up in the last 10 years," Weyand said. "But it's a challenge we've had to deal with – creating puppets for the show and hiring actors who could learn to be puppeteers in time to do the show."
The musical satirizes Sesame Street's optimism as well. These puppets are adults, and the real world is much more sobering and unfortunate – a fact that the character Lucy the Slut (Amy Jakiel) sings about.
The plot follows the exploits of Princeton (Marc Sacco), a young adult who moves onto Avenue Q with an English B.A. and no work experience. Throughout the musical he interacts with a cast that includes the saccharine Kate Monster (Jakiel), mischievous Bad Idea Bears (Jacob Albarella and Maria Droz), and Rod (Sacco) and Nicky (Albarella), Avenue Q's version of Bert and Ernie.
Despite its bitter undertone, Avenue Q's comedy is the show's main charm. The musical's humor ranges from raunchiness to facetious treatment on sensitive issues like homelessness.
MusicalFare's iteration of Avenue Q has been well received. Weyand says that the tickets sales for the performances have been among the company's highest, and the show was extended an extra week by popular demand.
Weyand believes that the actors feed off the reception in order to keep their performances consistent. A majority of the actors have no puppet experience and work to improve themselves as they perform in front of the pack theatres.
"The audience reaction is great so [the actors] are getting something from the audience," Weyand said. "They find new ways to make it even better than when it opened so things get refined as it goes along. They're having a great time as far as I can tell."
Sacco has performed in multiple musicals, but ranked Avenue Q as one of his favorite performances. The actor works as the secretary to the Dean of Affairs at the UB School of Nursing during the day before heading off to Daemen to perform five times a week.
Sacco draws the energy to perform his lead role from the cast.
"Sometimes it can be little difficult," Sacco said. "But the cast gets along really well, and it's a good group of people. It helps that I'm really happy to see everybody every day. I think the fact that we have a very jovial friendship with each other helps gives us life."
The demographic that the Buffalo venue draws in is another challenge. Avenue Q's humor and theme more directly speaks to the 18 to 24 year old audience. MusicalFare Theatre's location draws in a more elderly audience.
The crowd's more conservative background led to mixed responses to some of the material. "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist," a number that jokes about racial relations, was met with spurts of laughter accompanied by curmudgeon moans. A similar reaction occurred in a scene where puppets Princeton and Kate Monster were having onstage sex while Gary Coleman (Adrienne Lewis) encouraged the behavior in song.
Phil O'Neal, 53 from Buffalo, received tickets to the show as a Christmas gift from his wife. By intermission, he admitted that he got more than he bargained for.
"It's racier than I thought," O'Neal said.
Sacco is aware of the audience's age and noted that its reaction to Thursday's performance was quieter than usual. However, he's still pleased with the crowd's reaction.
"So shows like this are risky in general," Sacco said. "But into the process you know people may not like it or they're really, really going to respond well. We've been lucky enough that the responses have been great."
The show's run will continue through March 11.
Email: arts@ubspectrum.com
