At Last: Avenue Q

Last weekend, I went to see Avenue Q. The hilarous Tony Award-winning musical was more than worth the long wait it took for me to see it.

Four years ago, a nasty bout of food poisoning -- picked up at (no joke) a restaurant called Good Enough To Eat -- forced me to miss out on the performance I had tickets for. I couldn’t help wondering, would Avenue Q live up to all the hype?

In a word, absolutely.

Inspired by the set and characters of Sesame Street, Avenue Q is a wickedly funny, raunchy tale about the colorful human and puppet residents of an NYC tenement. The show tackles -- among other topics -- sex, racism and homosexuality with wit and bracing honesty.

The show’s story centers around idealistic college grad Princeton (Robert McClure), his search for a job and a purpose, and his romance with Kate Monster (Anika Larsen). When things don’t go turn out as he plans, Princeton learns some hard lessons about life and love.

Avenue Q manages to strike the perfect balance between politically incorrect snark and sentimentality. The ensemble cast does a heroic job of breathing life into their puppet counterparts, leaving you laughing uproariously along the way.

Broadway will lose a major source of fun when Avenue Q goes dark for good this month. After more than 2,500 performances, the long-running show will wrap up its six-year run on September 13th.