Avenue Nabs Third West End Home at Wyndham’s

Avenue Q will move into its third West End home this spring. It will now finish its run at the Gielgud Theatre – where it makes way for Broadway import Hair, opening in April (See News, 13 Nov 2009) – on 13 March 2010, before reopening on 19 March at Wyndham’s Theatre, where it’s initially booking until the end of September.

The puppet musical, billed as an adult version of Sesame Street, had its West End premiere in June 2006 at the Noel Coward theatre (which is back-door neighbour to Wyndham’s) and moved in June 2009 to the Gielgud.

Originally seen Off-Broadway in 2004, Avenue Q has a score by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, and a book by Jeff Whitty, with puppets conceived and designed by Rick Lyon, musical supervision by Stephen Oremus, and choreography by Ken Roberson. On Broadway, it won three Tony Awards, while amongst its London accolades, it won the Whatsonstage.com Award for Best Ensemble Performance and Best Takeover in a Role for Daniel Boys.

With the move, there will also be some key cast changes: Paul Spicer (Notes from New York, Taboo) takes over from Boys as Princeton/Rod, Jacqueline Tate takes over as Christmas Eve and Delroy Atkinson returns to the role of Gary. Avenue Q is produced in London by Cameron Mackintosh, Kevin McCollumn, Robyn Goodman, Jeffrey Seller, Vineyard Theatre and the New Group.

Currently at Wyndham’s (See News, 4 Nov 2009), Stephen Daldry‘s multi award-winning National Theatre production of JB Priestley’s 1946 thriller An Inspector Calls will now finish on 13 March 2010, a week earlier than previously scheduled (See Today’s Other News).