Broadway Street With Two Left Sides: ‘Avenue Q’

My friend Jane Shaffmaster gave me a call. Jane’s loved musicals since she was young enough to play the lead in “Annie” and spends a greater percentage of her annual income on Broadway than most heavy-duty Christians tithe every year. She was perusing the latest news on Playbill and was quite dismayed that political satire wasn’t affected by The Change. Like most on our side, Jane is fairly good humored about Republicans being the butt of jokes, but she expects those jokes to be distributed evenly across partisan lines.  A play called “Avenue Q” was rewriting its script to reflect the new administration but like most satirists*, they refuse to mock the new President.

“Avenue Q” is a puppet show for adults.  A song called “For Now” has the puppets reassure each other that most things in life are temporary, like hair and sex. Until recently, one of those temporary things was “George Bush.” Knowing that Obama was to be shortly inaugurated, the producers and writers were perplexed for a replacement. I know it should be obvious to everyone else, but Broadway producers don’t think like you and I. So they threw a contest to decide a better verse. (more…)