Albert Correa
Dejan Trickovic
Discover NY 12:20pm
December 4, 2005
My trip to Avenue Q
In a mystical class known only as Discover New York at St. John’s University, students are required to go to a Broadway play at the expense of the school. This is my story of the said assignment.
So before I even decided to go to the play I decided to look at the storylines of several different plays and narrowed the selection down to two different plays; Drumstruck[1] or Avenue Q. The decision was hard because I liked the idea of being involved in a Broadway play in Drumstruck but I also had an emphatic point of view on the story that was given from my Google search of Avenue Q. I flipped a coin to decide and it came out for Drumstruck… so I chose Avenue Q instead because I don’t trust money.
After weeks of anticipation the day finally arrived to go watch the big play. Unlike everyone else who went to these plays, I decided to go alone. It was around five in the afternoon and I decided to walk to the gym to have a short work out session with my roommate before the play. I stopped at the campus convenience store to get a protein shake for the work out and green tea for the trip; one of the worst tasting green tea drinks that I had ever wasted my money on. After a brief work out I decided to go sign in for the trip so I left my work out gloves to my roommate and I walked to the university center. I signed in and waited outside for a long time, disgruntled about the green tea still. Then from out of no where, one of the people from my suite that I had had little contact with up until that point signs in and comes outside, offering me a soggy burrito. I declined the burrito but I began to think more positively about going to the show since I had a familiar face with me. Then after a brief conversation he informed me that there were going to be puppets in the show.
“PUPPETS!?!” I was infuriated. The internet had failed to inform me of the puppets. So my pessimism about the night returned quickly, strengthened by the fact that I had testosterone and adrenaline running through me because of the workout and also by the fact that I had been waiting for such a long time to go to this show. Once we started going toward the bus my attitude switched and I decided to be apathetic towards the situation and just have as much fun as I possibly can given this “kiddy ass show.”
So me and the stranger I lived with got on the bus along with his two female friends. They sat directly in front of me and they smelled of “girl pretty,” which is a combination of artificial fruits that come from a can of spray. I pulled at their hair trying to extract fruits to rid my mouth of the taste of that bitter green tea. They moved away from me, possibly because of my failure to get any fruits. I turned to watch as the most beautiful city on this planet glided around us at a moderately slow pace, in comparison to the driving I was used to back home.
The traffic congested once we reached the best parts but I was hoping that it would. I told James, the stranger from my room, that I was about to wave at random people on the streets of New York from the bus. He didn’t think it would work at first since the windows were tinted but I explained to him that since the source of light was behind me people on the outside would probably see my figure if they could not see me in full. He evaluated this information and decided to join me like a real friend should support their comrades, even if we had not established friendship yet. At first no one waved back so James considered flipping them off instead but I decided to be ambitious and work until I got the results I desired. Finally we got our first wave from a man standing next to a cop, which was crowded because our bus was blocking the walkway. Everyone on the bus cheered for our first wave because he had become entertainment for the bus. My arm tired but this boost of confidence kept it waving. A total of four people waved but it had me feeling positive as we exited the bus. We got our tickets and I noticed that the line had already started forming… and it was LONG! I grabbed James and pulled him into the front of the line despite his protests. He tried to tell me that it was an inconvenience for the other people in line and we were running the risk of being caught and suffering unknown consequences. I checked to see that he wasn’t under the influence of drugs or alcohol when he told me this and I used the powers of peer pressure and philosophy on him, explaining that his idea of flipping off people would have been a greater inconvenience to someone especially if they were already having a bad day.
The people we jumped in front of didn’t mind because they, most likely, passive personalities. We walked up several flights of stairs and received a playbill from an awkward woman who directed us to our seats. We waited for the show to start for a while but we had entertainment because someone was causing a ruckus. I sat next to a Dominican girl and James sat next to me. I looked down at the stage from our high seats and I thought “How am I supposed to see these damn hand puppets if I’m so high up?” I flipped through the playbill to see who was in the show…Then the lights went out.
Avenue Q proved to be the contrary to my misconception of the show. The main character, Princeton came out with his human attached and he was a full sized “monster.” He came out talking about something I was interested in; life after college. It scared me a little at first because it showed him as being inept to the world and unable to do much with the degree he had earned. Then the landlord came out and I realized the show wasn’t just about puppets with problems but about the trials and tribulations faced by different types of people who are forced, by mere circumstance, to live in the same Brooklyn street.
Even though there is no actual Avenue Q[2] ; the satirical look at the life of a child star[3] after he returns to a normal lifestyle, the struggles of a person fresh out of college, and the mishaps of neighbors along with the various other sub-plots involved with the play is a fantastic depiction of New York City. There are so many stories going on in lives outside of ourselves that we fail to realize because we are stuck in our own bodies experiencing our own problems.
As to not disclose the intellectual property of the writers of this play I can only say that Avenue Q’s humorous look at truths that exist in our lives that we refuse to admit to will have u laughing your lungs out and thinking once you can get the oxygen back to your brain. The songs tell these truths with lines such as “The internet is for porn,” “It sucks to be me,” and “[George Bush] IS ONLY FOR NOW!” Avenue Q also goes as far as to refer to a philosophy that explains that the purpose of the misfortune of others is to make us feel better about our own inadequacies.
Anyone considering going to this show should not hesitate. Even with our seats the show was a great experience for me and I can’t wait to see it again someday. Being that I am the person usually making jokes it is hard for me to find time to laugh myself but Avenue Q gave me that chance even if it was mandatory. My thoughts as I left the show were “So this is the reason why some shows make it to Broadway.” He only things I would warn against this movie is that first, it is not for children, and second, when you go home singing the songs they sing… no one will know what your talking about and might be offended or confused.
">[1] Drumstruck is a Broadway musical in which the audiences are seated in front of a set of drums and are asked to play along with the show at certain times.
[2] In it’s place is Quinton Road
[3] Gary Coleman
[2] In it’s place is Quinton Road
[3] Gary Coleman
