It wasn't all that long ago that the Skylight Music Theatre was known for opera and Gilbert and Sullivan light opera.
Look out folks, here comes "Avenue Q," complete with dancing puppets, real live young people and enough angst to fill a psychiatric office for weeks.
The long-running Broadway hit begins its run at Skylight Sept. 21-Oct. 14. If these were still the days of George Carlin, the show would be closed down by police after half an hour.
"Avenue Q" tells the story of a bunch of young people who find themselves in a daily scrap to survive on the outskirts of New York City on an Avenue named Q. The show comes complete with real people and some fuzzy puppets (which are not your mother's "Sesame Street" heroes).
They use a colorful vocabulary that will make some blush, some cringe, but almost everyone laugh. The humor is actually funny and the music captures much of the humor and pathos of the young caught in the middle of being a kid and being a grownup.
A Variety magazine review of the production captured its essence:
"While the musical's core journey is the rocky transition from college to financial independence and emotional maturity, the adversities faced by its puppet and human characters are familiar to any age group. They also seem especially keyed into the recession zeitgeist – bills to pay, a low-paying job or no job at all, housing worries, education qualifications that prove useless in the real world.
"The news that all this struggle and dissatisfaction is "Only for Now," to quote the show's closing song, is an unusually droll and grounded consolation for a musical, a genre more traditionally given to sweeping optimism. But the affirmation of transience in this context is somehow its own unorthodox source of uplift."
This show is expected to be a real hoot.
For further information and tickets, see the website.
With a history in Milwaukee stretching back decades, Dave tries to bring a unique perspective to his writing, whether it's sports, politics, theater or any other issue.
He's seen Milwaukee grow, suffer pangs of growth, strive for success and has been involved in many efforts to both shape and re-shape the city. He's a happy man, now that he's quit playing golf, and enjoys music, his children and grandchildren and the myriad of sports in this state. He loves great food and hates bullies and people who think they are smarter than everyone else.
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