The Deal

• One ticket to see Avenue Q for $45
• Click here to view the seating chart

Avenue Q

The long-running Broadway hit Avenue Q—winner of the Tony triple crown for Best Musical, Book, and Score in 2004—packs its rollicking musical with irreverent wit and puppets that say the darndest things. A cross-species mix of puppets and humans centers on Princeton, a well-meaning recent college grad who moves to New York City with Big Apple-sized dreams and gets a much needed real-world education from his neighbors. Along the way, bouncy songs and sassy dialogue delve into topical issues such as politics and bedroom mores. The off-color, mature, and perversely funny production is warm, endearing, and more heart-rending than a sock-puppet production of King Lear.

Key to both the tear-jerking and side-splitting: the score, written by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, which captures the cheery feel of a children’s television show while stuffing in taboo-skewering lyrics. Tunes such as “I’m Not Wearing Underwear Today” and “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” don’t skimp on the jokes, but not every song drips with the same acerbic wit. Ballads, including the wistful “I Wish I Could Go Back to College,” stand out for their genuine emotion, filling Avenue Q with a resonance that lurks just beneath its fuzzy, politically incorrect exterior. The musical is intended for mature audiences only, or parents training their children for a life of detention.