The Catskill Chronicle

Photos provided by the Forestburgh Playhouse.

by Barry Plaxen

Norman Duttweiler, Managing Director of the newly created Forestburgh Theatre Arts Center, Inc., is a busy man. Besides producing his regular summer-stock season at the Playhouse, along with a seasonal children’s theatre production (“Seussical, the Musical”) and the nightly cabaret, Duttweiler, Artistic Director, Ron Nash, and their associates are hard at work planning for appearances by Ed Asner as FDR on July 12 and Loretta Swit in “Equus” in September. All this because, as I interpret it, Duttweiler’s purpose in life seems to be to continue bringing entertaining theatre of all genres to Sullivan County.

And purpose is the name of the game for Forestburgh’s second musical of the  season, “Avenue Q.” This Tony-award-winning musical is the story of young adults, ages 21 through 33, seeking their purpose in life. Running for over six years on Broadway, “Avenue Q” is unique in that some characters are portrayed by actors and others by puppets that are satirically based on Sesame Street characters. The live characters and the puppets sing, and there are video clips shown as part of the story. A bit of multi-media. Puppets notwithstanding, this entertaining musical is not for children as it contains adult language and deals with situations such as racism and pornography with humor, and homosexuality with moving candor.

From Wikipedia: “The characters who are not puppets relate to the puppets, rather than to the actors holding them. The puppets also speak directly to each other and never to the actors operating them. During the course of the show, a puppet character may be operated by more than one of the actor-operators, although the same actor creates the voice for a particular puppet even if he or she is not holding the puppet at the time. The puppeteers wear nondescript black/gray clothing while the puppets and the three human characters are dressed in bright colors.”

But we the audience have it both ways – we can react to both the puppets and the puppeteer-actors, and it adds a very interesting dimension to theatergoing. We seem to feel compassion for the puppets and empathize with the puppeteer-actors at the same time. Or maybe vice versa?

Avenue Q originally opened off-Broadway and after its Broadway run moved back to off-Broadway where it is still running. You can conveniently see it in Forestburgh now through July 4 with a wonderful five-piece band and a lively and fun cast of singing-actors: Scott Evans, Max Nussbaum, Jessica Wagner, Jim Bray, Caitlin Burke, Phoenix Tolliver and Ariana Sepulveda.

It is difficult to single out one or more cast members for recognition as they are all excellent with their comic timing, communication of feelings and ability to play directly to the audience. Some of them are part of the 2010 resident company and others are Equity professionals that have entertained us before at Forestburgh.

Kudos to Tom Smith, director and to Steven Cuevas, musical director. They, and the scenic, costume, puppet and lighting designers who do wonders with the small stage area, help bring the characters and story to life with their skillful work. With Smith at the helm, I would say the performers do the creators, Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx, Jeff Whitty and Rick Lyon proud.