Trivia / Avenue Q

• Acting for Two: Rod and Princeton are played, or at least always voiced, by the same actor. Same goes for Trekkie Monster and Nicky, and Kate and Lucy the Slut, and every show has one very busy supporting puppeteer.
• Approval of God: While the show came out years after the death of Jim Henson, Jane Henson (Jim's widow), Cheryl Henson (his daughter), and Frank Oz all saw the show during its original run and loved it.
• Cut Song:
  • "Tear It Up and Throw It Away," which was cut late in the off-Broadway rehearsals. Kate gets a jury duty summons, but Nicky tells her to... tear it up and throw it away. As a sort of Mythology Gag, the tune of the song is used during Brian and Christmas Eve's dialogue during "The Money Song” (at least, in the soundtrack).
  • Other cut songs include "My Life is in Boxes," "How Much Do the People in Your Neighborhood Make?" (a direct spoof of the Sesame Street song "People in Your Neighborhood"), "We Need a Label" (where after "You Can be as Loud as the Hell You Want (When You're Makin' Love)", Princeton and Kate discuss the thing that all commitment-phobic guys dread: what their relationship status is) and "Take Your Time," which wound up being produced as an intermission video for the London production.
• Defictionalization:
  • They sell Bad Idea Bear finger puppets and Trekkie Monster hand puppets in the Avenue Q store.
  • When the State of New York legalized same-sex marriage, Rod and Ricky were married in real life, which kind of counts.
• Development Gag: The title, Avenue Q, is likely a reference to 123 Avenue B, which was a Working Title for Sesame Street, which the show was inspired by.
• Parody Assistance: Many of the puppeteers in the original production were played by veterans of Jim Henson shows.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: The original Broadway run had Rod (and Princeton) played by John Tartaglia, who himself is openly gay.
• Throw It In!: The sex between Kate Monster and Princeton during "You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Want (When You're Makin' Love)" was originally supposed to be under a blanket, but apparently one day during rehearsal, John Tartaglia and Stephanie D'Abruzzo started playing around with the naked puppets to see what it would look like over the sheets. The choreographer liked it so much that Avenue Q is considered by many to be puppet porn even today.
• Weird Crossover: As part of a Broadway Cares charity event in 2005, there was a 10-minute crossover spoof musical of Avenue Q and Fiddler on the Roof called Avenue Jew. And it's amazing.
  Jewish-American Princeton (singing): What do you do with a B.A. in Yiddish?
• What Could Have Been:
  • Gary Coleman was allegedly offered the part of Gary Coleman, but never showed up for the meeting that would have sealed this. It's also worth noting that when Gary Coleman did see how he was portrayed in the musical he wasn't happy about it and planned on suing the creators, but couldn't get a lawyer to take his case.
  • The original idea was more directly inspired by Sesame Street—a televised series of songs and skits teaching "lessons" about everyday life for twentysomethings, to be shown on [adult swim] or some such. The musical we have is great, but a TV series would've been something else again.
  • Trekkie Monster was originally meant to be a Trekkie, deliberately designed to resemble Cookie Monster.

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