Courthouse’s Avenue Q is a monstrous delight

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 22, 2012

One of its incidental characters Avenue Q seems dated. Gary Coleman (Ashley Kelley), who played a kid in the 1980s sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, is the down-on-his-luck superintendent of one of the buildings in the neighborhood. For the original audiences he must have epitomized the contrast that the show was emphasizing, between youthful good fortune and optimism and inevitable real-world disappointment.

The actors are uniformly good, with Lathrop the versatile centerpiece and Hummel-Price an amiable constant. But I was especially charmed by Triangolo playing both the winsome Kate Monster and the super-slutty Lucy, who seduces Princeton.

The Courthouse's Avenue Q is a first-rate Off-Off-Oh-So-Off-Broadway rendition of an entertaining delight. But it's probably not for recent college graduates who are still sending out résumés.

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