WHS ‘Avenue Q’ is comedy with a purpose

By Lisa Moore
Hometown Weekly Correspondent

The Wellesley High School Drama Society spring musical, “Avenue Q,” was a unique choice for a high school production. Coming with a parental warning for adult content and language, the show was intended for mature audiences. Using satire to address serious community issues and anxieties associated with entering adulthood, “Avenue Q” was funny and provocative, providing an opportunity for town residents to address issues like race, gender identity, and other topics affecting the community in a unique and humor-filled way.

The show followed the lives of the residents of “Avenue Q” and the problems they faced as they searched for their respective purposes in life. Songs like “It Sucks to Be Me,” “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist,” “If You Were Gay,” and “The Internet Is For Porn” (which the cast changed to “The Internet is For Dating” - one of the few spots censored in the production), were a parable of issues facing the Wellesley community today.

Performed as a parody of children’s programs like Sesame Street and Electric Company, with actors interacting with puppets that live together in an “outer-outer borough” of New York City, “Avenue Q” portrayed real adult situations that high school students face and will continue to face as they go on to college and beyond.

Once again, the WHS Drama students and staff put together an impressive production. Student directors Tess Buckley and Zoe Salvucci and Stage Managers Rachel Cheung and Katie Pyzowski, aided by nearly two dozen students on stage crew, an additional dozen students on the creative team, and a 10-person student pit orchestra, created a professional-quality production that made it hard to believe it was a high school student musical.

If you were unable to get tickets for “Avenue Q” there is still one more opportunity to see a WHS Drama Society production when they perform Red Noses, a black comedy about the Black Plague, June 1st at p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and June 3rd at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. For more information, visit www.wellesleypops.org.