Displaying items by tag: Avenue Q

Wednesday, 13 May 2026 16:29

BrightSide Theatre announces 2026-27 season - THE ADDAMS FAMILY, THE SECRET GARDEN: IN CONCERT, KEN LUDWIG'S BASKERVILLE: A SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY, and AVENUE Q

BrightSide Theatre has announced its 15^th season of presenting professional theatre in Naperville. Its 2026-27 mainstage slate of four productions will include Chicago-area favorites that have not previously been produced professionally in the western suburbs. The season will open in October with THE ADDAMS FAMILY, a musical based on the characters from cartoons by Charles Addams for THE NEW YORKER Magazine. The gloriously ghoulish family members Gomez, Morticia, Wednesday, Pugsley, Uncle Fester, and Grandma; along with their servants Lurch and Thing, will take the stage of the Theater at Meiley-Swallow Hall from October 2 – 18, under the direction of BrightSide's De Haddad, with music direction by Phil Videckis and choreography by Shane Brown.

BrightSide will return from the holidays with a concert performance of the lush and sweeping score of THE SECRET GARDEN. The musical, based the ever-popular novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, opened on Broadway in 1991 and has enjoyed worldwide popularity ever since. BrightSide Artistic Director Jeffrey Cass will direct, with Phil Videckis providing music direction. THE SECRET GARDEN will be performed in the Madden Theatre at North Central College from January 8-17, 2027.

The third show of the season will be a hilariously wacky take on one of the most famous Sherlock Holmes mysteries, crafted by one of the masters of stage comedy, Ken Ludwig (LEND ME A TENOR, MOON OVER BUFFALO). KEN LUDWIG'S BASKERVILLE: A SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY takes the tale by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about Holmes and Dr. Watson investigating a supernatural curse and a demonic hound and transforms it into a farce and mystery performed by five actors playing over 40 different characters. Jason Harrington, who showed his skill with comic mystery in his direction of DEATHTRAP for BrightSide in 2025, will direct. KEN LUDWIG'S BASKERVILLE: A SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY will be performed in the Theatre at Meiley-Swallow Hall from March 5-27.

Closing the season in June will be the bold and brash humor of AVENUE Q, the 2004 winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical. AVENUE Q uses the style of SESAME STREET to teach life lessons to a group of young adults trying to make it in New York City, with characters portrayed by puppets as well human actors. BrightSide Artistic Director Jeffrey Cass will direct the musical, with music direction by Phil Videckis. AVENUE Q will be performed in the Theatre at Meiley-Swallow Hall from June 11- 17, 2027.

Tickets for individual shows are $37.00 for adults and $32.00 for students and seniors. Season subscriptions and individual show tickets will be on sale beginning July 1, 2025 at www.BrightSidetheatre.com or by phone at 630-447-TIXS (8497).

LISTING INFORMATION

THE ADDAMS FAMILY MUSICAL
Book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice
Music and Lyrics by Andrew Lippa
Orchestrations by Larry Hochman
Based on Characters Created by Charles Addams
Director: De Haddad
Music Director: Phil Videckis
Choreographer: Shane Brown
October 2 - 18, 2026
Fri & Sat @ 7:30pm | Sun @2pm
The Theatre at Meiley-Swallow Hall, 31 S. Ellsworth, Naperville

THE ADDAMS FAMILY is a comical feast that embraces the wackiness in every family. Wednesday Addams, the ultimate princess of darkness, has grown up and fallen in love with a sweet, smart young man from a respectable family—a man her parents have never met. And if that wasn't upsetting enough, Wednesday confides in her father and begs him not to tell her mother. Now, Gomez Addams must do something he's never done before—keep a secret from his beloved wife, Morticia. Everything will change for the whole family on the fateful night they host a dinner for Wednesday's "normal" boyfriend and his parents.

THE SECRET GARDEN in CONCERT
Book and Lyrics by Marsha Norman
Music by Lucy Simon
based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Director: BrightSide Theatre Artistic Director Jeffrey Cass
Music Direction: Phil Videckis
January 8 - 17, 2027
Fridays & Saturdays @ 7:30pm | Sat & Sun @ 2pm
Madden Theatre, 171 Chicago Ave, Naperville

This enchanting classic of children's literature is reimagined in brilliant musical style by composer Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of 'NIGHT MOTHER. Orphaned in India, 11-year-old Mary Lennox returns to Yorkshire to live with her embittered, reclusive uncle Archibald and his disabled son Colin. The estate's many wonders include a magic garden which beckons the children with haunting melodies and the "Dreamers," spirits from Mary's past who guide her through her new life, dramatizing THE SECRET GARDEN's compelling tale of forgiveness and renewal.

BASKERVILLE: A SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY
by Ken Ludwig
Director: Jason Harrington
March 5 -21, 2027
Fri & Sat @ 7:30pm | Sun @ 2pm
The Theatre at Meiley-Swallow Hall, 31 S. Ellsworth, Naperville

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES is now a murderously funny adventure performed by five actors playing more than forty characters. Sherlock Holmes is on the case. The male heirs of the Baskerville line are being dispatched one by one. To find their ingenious killer, Holmes and Watson must brave the desolate moors before a family curse dooms its newest heir. The intrepid investigators try to escape a dizzying web of clues, silly accents, disguises and deceit. Does a wild hellhound prowl the moors of Devonshire? Can our heroes discover the truth in time? Join the fun and see how far from elementary the truth can be.

AVENUE Q
Music & Lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx
Book by Jeff Whitty
Based on an original concept by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx
Orchestrations & Arrangements by Stephen Oremus
Director: BrightSide Theatre Artistic Director Jeffrey Cass
Music Direction: Phil Videckis
June 11 - 27, 2027
Fri & Sat @ 7:30pm & Sun @ 2pm, Thursdays June 17 and 24 at 7:30 pm
No performances Saturday, June 19
The Theatre at Meiley-Swallow Hall, 31 S. Ellsworth, Naperville

An adult-oriented version of SESAME STREET with a cast featuring puppets and human actors. This laugh-out-loud Tony-Award-winning musical comedy tells the timeless story of a recent college grad named Princeton, who moves into a shabby New York apartment all the way out on Avenue Q. He soon discovers that, although the residents seem nice, it's clear that this is not your ordinary neighborhood. Together, Princeton and his new-found friends struggle to find jobs, dates and their ever-elusive purpose in life.

Published in Upcoming Theatre

Can You Tell Me How to Get To; Avenue Q at Northlight Theater

The cast of Avenue Q, now playiong at North Shore Center for the Performing Arts

On a rather ordinary winter day, I settled in to binge-watch Big Little Lies on HBO. In the show, the community of upper-class suburbia signs a petition to ban a musical from performing in the local theater. The play was against the community values, they argued, handling issues of racism, porn, and most dreadfully sex. The bit of the whole thing was that the play had puppets and those puppets simulated sex (gasp!). Watching the outrage of the characters in the show and the eye-rolling of the show’s protagonist of her narrow minded community members, I promised myself if the show ever came to Chicago I would be front row center. Luckily this fool’s spring, that show has officially come to Chicagoland; that show was Avenue Q.

Avenue Q can best be summed up as a satirical parody of PBS’s Sesame Street. The musical comedy features puppets and human actors with upbeat, clever, and catchy music and lyrics exploring adult themes. It won Best Musical, Book, and Score at the 2004 Tony Awards.

We arrive on Avenue Q with Princeton, a bright-eyed recent puppet college grad questioning the very thing I did after graduation with the song “What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?”. Princeton, like most of us, wonders what happens now in his life, how can he afford rent? What will he do for a living? What is his purpose? Princeton and his neighbors, both puppets and humans, are all young adults facing problems after school ends and the real world begins. They navigate and explore these issues often through song, problems dealing with money troubles, job issues, sex ("You Can Be as Loud as the Hell You Want (When You're Makin' Love)", homosexuality ("If You Were Gay"), unrequited love, racism ("Everyone's a Little Bit Racist"), and wondering when and how you can chase your dreams. There are incredibly relatable numbers that explore why we’re here and what the hell we’re supposed to be doing (“Purpose”), and longing for a more simplistic life (“I Wish I Could Go Back to College”). The musical also boasted profanity, fucking puppets, and I feared I would be asked to leave the theater when I couldn’t stop laughing when the puppet Kate-Monster and her puppet neighbor Trekkie Monster sing about the beauty and awe that is the internet “The Internet Is for Porn.” The Northlight production added some hilarious digital elements to the play during stage prep and scene changes, such as funny NYC facts and signs (free wi-fi ON don’t use for porn/free wi-fi OFF they used it for porn) and play-on-word counting videos like Sesame Street (5-4-3-2-1, 1 Night Stand) to prep for a sex scene in the musical.

MusicTheaterWorks AvenueQ 2

Avenue Q is a simultaneously well-known and obscure musical. Many audience members had seen the show while I had only heard of it in recent pop culture. It came out the same year I graduated high school and has aged incredibly well. What once might have seemed outrageous to audiences and critics at the time are rather tame by today’s standards. Some older and more current reviews point not to the content but to the mocking or disparaging parody of the groundbreaking show Sesame Street. To me, Avenue Q is merely the grown-up version of Sesame Street or the big brother who returned home jaded from college and moved in next door because they can’t afford rent. It’s the show that Sesame Street could have become if acquired by HBO from PBS. Said another way, Avenue Q is the Cards Against Humanity to Sesame Street’s Apples to Apples. The show’s humor grounds itself in the realness of stepping out as an adult in the world and it is why it is still relevant and relatable today. I can see it quickly becoming a cult classic amongst younger generations who embrace parody, satire, and humor in an otherwise brutal world.

MusicTheaterWorks AvenueQ 3
Avenue Q plays at the Northlight Theater (9501 Skokie Blvd) in Skokie. Northlight Theater continues to deliver incredible productions, and its 2023 lineup is filled with incredible shows. The theater is easily accessible for Chicagoans and suburbanites with a sense of humor. Tickets are available at Northlightcenter.org.

Published in Theatre in Review

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