BOTTOM LINE: Still as entertaining as it was back in 2004 when it opened on Broadway.
Laughter is an important catharsis, and really good laughter that makes your abs hurt is reserved only for the finest comedy. I am excited to report that Avenue Q, now enjoying an off-Broadway run at New World Stages, still makes me chuckle to the point of tears just as it did six years ago when it opened on Broadway.
Avenue Q (or the dirty puppet musical, as some know it, shown here with the original Broadway cast) has taken an interesting production turn by closing its Broadway run in September only to somewhat immediately open off-Broadway. Obviously, producers thought its success was far from over, at least in a smaller theatre for a slightly cheaper ticket price. Announcements that Avenue Q was closing on Broadway came as a shock, since the show had been a smash since it opened in 2003. Beating all odds, the satirical new musical won the 2004 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score (Wicked lost in an upset).
Now Avenue Q has taken residence at New World Stages, the commercial off-Broadway house just outside the theatre district that offers several theatres and consequently, several shows, at the same time. New World Stages is a cool space, although it feels very sterile, somewhat space-age and mostly like a movie theatre with multiple “screens” and several bars (for both snacks and alcohol). Contrast this with Avenue Q’s gritty, from-the-outskirts-of-Manhattan feel, and all of a sudden the commercial intentions of the production become all-too-clear. It made me wish I had seen the show in its original off-Broadway debut at The Vineyard Theater. But regardless, the medium-sized house provides a comfy space to see this show.
It’s no surprise that Broadway producers like to cast celebrities in their shows. If your show, let’s say, is a dramatic British play about horses that wouldn’t attract the average tourist (ahem, 
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Well, the Tony Awards aired last Sunday night and there weren’t any surprises of note. Everyone who was supposed to win took home their respective awards and aside from the teleprompter being apparently really hard to read, the night pretty much went as planned. Billy Elliot won almost all of the awards it was up for, including the coveted Best Musical prize. God of Carnage won the award for Best Play, as expected. Neil Patrick Harris proved to be a decent Tonys host, not terribly cheesy but still endearing to Grandmas in Ohio. And the G-rated entertainment offered more musical performances this year including the tours of Legally Blonde, Jersey Boys and Mamma Mia (because that’s apparently what people want).
Brian Yorkey is not an asshole. The playwright of the new Broadway musical Next to Normal would never write disparaging comments on a blog post critical of his show. He actually welcomes intellectual discussions about Next to Normal and is much more humble than proud. So it was obviously disconcerting when he discovered an impostor was posting offensive comments as “Brian Yorkey” on a handful of websites this past spring as Next to Normal opened on Broadway.