Avenue Q Foregoes Stratford for UK Debut???

Over the summer, Theatre Royal Stratford East announced via Whatsonstage.com that it would host the hotly anticipated British premiere of Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Avenue Q. Though exact dates were not confirmed, the show was due to have an eight-week season at the east London landmark starting in February 2006 ahead of a planned West End transfer care of co-producer Cameron Mackintosh; audition advertisements were placed in the trade press following that schedule. But plans have now changed. According to the Stratford East press office: "Avenue Q, which is being produced by Cameron Mackintosh Ltd in Association with the Theatre Royal Stratford East and The Producing Office in New York, will now open directly in the West End in 2005. Due to the high additional cost of producing the show in two separate venues, all the producers have concluded that, in the current climate, this is no longer practical. The Theatre Royal Stratford East will nevertheless continue to play an important role in the creative development of the show." However, even that may not be the final word. Mackintosh’s own office has not yet made an announcement and a spokesperson there told Whatsonstage.com that arrangements have not yet been “100% finalised”.

Mackintosh has previously confirmed that the musical will open in “one of my theatres next year” and we’ve speculated that, timing-wise, the most likely venue is the recently renamed and currently being refurbished Novello (formerly the Strand) Theatre (See The Goss, 28 Jun 2005), which will be available from April 2006 after the Royal Shakespeare Company completes the first of its annual West End seasons as part of a five-year agreement with the impresario (See News, 7 Jun 2005). Another possibility, though it runs somewhat counter to the logic of Stratford East’s statement above, is that Mackintosh could open Avenue Q out of town first, as he did with Mary Poppins. The Disney co-production had two months at Bristol Hippodrome before its West End premiere at the Prince Edward Theatre last December. Avenue Q, which won three 2004 Tonys including Best Musical, takes an irreverent look at adult living using a traditional form of children’s entertainment, puppetry. It’s billed as a musical form of “Sesame Street meets South Park” and, despite it’s sending up popular kids TV shows, it carries the warning "full puppet nudity, not suitable for children." The show has music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx and a book by Jeff Whitty.

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