The best way to describe “Avenue Q” is “Sesame Street,” grown up and gone wrong.

A rowdy musical that touched on everything from sex to life’s purpose, the puppets that starred in the Syracuse University Department of Drama’s “Avenue Q” were both raunchy and comically naive. The music and lyrics, written by Robert Lopez, were slightly more risqué than his work in the Disney’s movie, “Frozen.”

The Arthur Storch Theater inside the Syracuse Stage/SU Drama Complex was packed with an audience that laughed boisterously at the dark comedy presented on stage. Saturday was the musical’s opening night, and it will run through May 9.

“Avenue Q” is the story of a group of puppets, monsters and humans living in a fictitious “outer-outer borough” of New York City. They are all struggling to find their place in the world, ignore the devils on their shoulders and pay their rent.

The musical was performed on a two-tiered set representing a regular New York City street corner. The houses had windows that were frequently flung open by flesh and furry actors alike to perform short skits — most notably, when all of the male cast members and the girl who played former child star, Gary Coleman, all threw the windows open to sing about how “The Internet Is For Porn.”

Either one or two students controlled each puppet, depending on which character it was. Members of the cast said they worked hard to develop their characters through big movements and facial expressions. For some, learning to maneuver the puppets was a challenge.

“When I started to work with the puppets, I cried. It was so hard,” said Michael Roach, the sophomore musical theater major who played the role of Princeton, one of the main characters. When on stage with both puppets and humans, the puppet has to be larger than life or else no one is going to watch the puppet, he added.

Audience members hummed along to tunes including, “What Do You Do With A B.A. in English,” “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist” and “Schadenfreude,” the German word for delight in another’s misfortune.

Brian Cimmet, the musical’s director, punctuated many of the scenes with short animated video clips narrated by groups of children. The innocent voices added humor to the videos with double meanings — for example, in a video of children counting night stand furniture, they sang “three night stands, two night stands, one night stands.”

The most standout scene of the show had to be the sex scene between two of the puppets. Set to the song, “You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Want (When You’re Making Love),” a number of the characters proceeded to get down to business on stage.

“The sex scene, of course, was pretty much unexpected. We really laughed our heads off at that one,” said Dylan Weinberger, a junior finance and information management and technology dual major who was in the audience. He also said the show was relatable because many people are trying to find their footing in life and it captured that theme well.

Chirag Manohar, a sophomore musical theater major who played the role of Brian, said he began rehearsing with one cast of actors, and the puppets added an entirely new cast of personalities, being a source of humor both on and off the stage.

To get into a goofy mood before the show, Manohar said the cast pokes fun at the puppets’ lack of a rear end by chanting, “No butts on three… No butts!”

“It’s the type of show that if not everything goes to plan it’s still funny because that makes it funnier in a way,” Manohar said. “But as far as openings go, you know, it was the smoothest opening I’ve ever been a part of.”

Published on April 26, 2015 at 9:30 pm

Contact Rachel: rcgilber@syr.edu