America’s favorite troupe of bawdy puppets will return to Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium tonight.
Avenue Q will perform in the venue for the second time in as many years at 7:30 tonight.
“The big thing about puppetry is you have to realize it’s not about you, it’s about the puppet,” said David Corris, who plays Princeton and Rod in the show. “It’s about the character and the story.”
Corris, who is a trained puppeteer, added that focusing exclusively on another character can be a challenge at times.
“You’re bringing to life foam and fabric, so your main focus is to put all of your energy into your hand and your arm,” Corris said. “… Bringing that inanimate object to life and getting the audience to believe that it’s living and that it’s breathing and that it’s emoting and that it’s in the moment, that it’s laughing, that it’s crying — that’s when it’s great.”
Corris also said that developing the character of a puppet is similar to developing a stage character.
Finding the appropriate emotion is just as challenging, while being slightly different at the same time, because the vehicle is the puppet, not the actor’s body, he said.
“It’s not only how you look when you’re sad; it’s how the puppet looks when it’s sad,” he said.
Avenue Q, a story about following your dreams in New York City, won Tony Awards in 2004 for Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book.
“It’s so relatable to so many people. It’s about life, it’s about finding how you fit, it’s about relationships or failures and feeling comfortable in your own skin,” Corris said. “It’s relevant and it will stay relevant as long as people exist and as long as they wonder why they are the way they are.”
Ohio University will pay $22,000 for the show, a cost it expects to earn back in ticket sales, said Andrew Holzaepfel, associate director of Ohio University’s Campus Involvement Center and booking agent for the Performing Arts Series.
The Performing Arts Series is also offering a special student rush ticket promotion, which will offer students who bring a printed voucher and OU ID to MemAud tomorrow admittance for $12, as opposed to $22.
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