The expletive-spouting puppets of Avenue Q are back, as foul-mouthed and fabulous as ever, in The Wayward Artist’s terrifically entertaining intimate staging of the 2003 Broadway smash.

The Robert Lopez-Jeff Marx-Jeff Whitty musical comedy smash imagines what might happen if Jim Henson’s Muppets started singing songs and teaching life lessons about adult topics like sexual orientation, racism, and Internet porn.

“Sesame Street For Grown-Ups” is just one way to sum up this ingenious blend of fuzzy-faced puppets and live human actors, some of whom manipulate the puppet characters they give voice to, others of whom play their roles in traditional costumed-actor mode.

Add to this almost two-dozen melodious songs and some “instructional” video segments and you’ve got a thoroughly entertaining coming-of-age story chili-peppered with salty language and at least one scene of puppet-on-puppet sex.

Whitty’s Tony-winning book introduces us to a dapper young chap named Princeton (Wyatt Hatfield and a Muppets-inspired puppet), freshly graduated with a B.A. in English with no idea what to do with his life.

Fortunately for Princeton, his apartment hunting has led him from Avenue A to the far more affordable Avenue Q and a “For Rent” sign in a building supered by none other than washed-up TV star Gary Coleman (Charis Tshihamba minus hand puppet as “Gary” himself) and peopled by roommates Rod (Wyatt Hatfield and puppet) and Nicky (Myles Prower Davis and puppet), live-in lovers Brian and Christmas Eve (Zach Payne and Gloria Henderson in puppet-free human mode), sweet young thing Kate Monster (Anyssa Navarro and puppet), and upstairs grouch Trekkie Monster (Davis again, puppet in hand).

In song after tuneful, clever song (music and lyrics by Lopez and Marx), we get to know these self-proclaimed losers-in-life up close and personal, along with a series of humorous life lessons taught in song and an occasional animated video, à la Sesame Street, though with considerably saltier language and themes, ditties with titles like “The Internet Is For Porn,” “You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Want (When You’re Makin’ Love),” and “Schadenfreude,” German for “watching a frat boy realize just what he put his dick in.”

Also figuring along the way are cabaret skank Lucy The Slut (Navarro and puppet), a pair of Bad Idea Bears (Davis and Kelsey Redmond holding a couple of cute-as-can-be stuffed animals) who delight in giving the worst possible advice, Kate’s grouchy grammar school principal Mrs. Thistletwat (Redmond), and some eleventh-hour surprises.

Director Wyn Moreno makes the savvy decision not to mess with the Broadway original’s central conceit, that there should be a clear distinction between puppet characters like Princeton, Nicky, and Kate Monster (who remain the same regardless of which black-clad performer is manipulating them) and costumed “human” characters like Christmas Eve and Brian, meaning that, for example, Princeton and Rod (both voiced by Hatfield), or Kate and Lucy The Slut (both voiced by Navarro), can appear together at the same time.

Moreno has also cast seven of the best young performers Orange County has to offer, beginning with a couple of fabulous Cal State Fullerton grads with acting chops to match their pitch-perfect pipes.

Hatfield gives Princeton boy-next-door charm while his Rod aches with so much repressed longing, his “Fantasies Comes True” brought tears to my eyes, and Navarro’s Kate is as Sandra Dee-sweet-and-perky as her Lucy is Mae West-hot-and-sultry, and she brings the house down with the Act One Closer “There’s A Fine, Fine Line.”

Performances don’t get any more engaging than Davis’s ever-so-sweet Nicky and his unashamedly raunchy Trekkie, and Kelsey Redmond’s Mrs. Thistletwat is the quintessential battle-axe.

(The duo earn bonus points as the ribald Bad Idea Bears as Redmond a few of her own for giving Nickie and Trekkie a second movable arm.)

As for the humans, Payne’s likeable slacker of a Brian, Henderson’s English-mangling delight of a Christmas Eve, and Tshihamba’s irrepressibly feisty Gary are every bit as splendid as their puppet counterparts.

Music director Andrea Decker has the entire cast vocalizing harmoniously to pre-recorded tracks as choreographer Sarah Ripper inserts lively snippets of dance throughout the show.

Though scenic designer Ashley Strain and video designer Anna Miles merit snaps for originality, I wish they hadn’t strayed from the Broadway original’s distinctively Sesame Street look, particularly given that the puppets remain straight out of the Jim Henson universe.

Ella Nelson’s costumes (presumably for both humans and puppets), Camille Roberts’ lighting, Ally Vargas’s props, and Elsie Mader’s sound design add to the show’s visual and auditory appeal.

Ripper doubles as intimacy coordinator. Makenna Green is stage manager and Vargas and Jessica Watson are assistant stage managers. Sydney Fitzgerald is production manager.

A musical has to be darned near perfect for me to keep going back to see production after production after production, and at ten and counting, Avenue Q is just such a show.

Head on down to The Wayward Artist and you’ll see why it hits the mark and tickles the funny bone each and every time.

CSUF Grand Central Art Center, 125 N. Broadway, Santa Ana.
www.TheWaywardArtist.org

–Steven Stanley
July 15, 2023
Photos: Francis Gacad

Tags: Grand Central Theatre, Jeff Marx, Jeff Whitty, Orange County Theater Review, The Wayward Artist