To view some of the production photos for “Avenue Q”, please click here.

Avenue Q was the third and final Skyline College Spring Musical Production that was funded on the President’s Innovation Fund.  This was an especially difficult show to produce as I had to build and teach my students how to build “Muppet” style puppets along with designing and building the set.  I decided to go with a “entropy enhanced Sesame Street” that would be able to either drive or fly away either in stages or completely to allow us to represent a variety of different locations without the burden of a unit set occupying the stage the whole time.  The two buildings on S.R. and S.L. were anchored to heavy wagons and the center building flew away completely.  From there, we could fly-in “Rod and Nikky’s apt”, “Princeton’s apt”, or a variety of other scenes including the “nightclub” and the “hospital”.  This show presented a particular challenge I decided to push the set closer to the plaster line and forcing the actors onto the apron to provide a more intimate connection between the puppets and the audience.  This meant that the band could not be in the orchestra pit, so we placed them on risers behind the set and a good deal of soft goods.  Every instrument had a beta98 clipped onto it and the entire band mix was sent to the LS9, pre-mixed, and then routed in groups digitally to the FOH M7CL-48 via the network.   A camera was placed in front of the conductor, and a projector and screen were hung from the back of the house so that the cast could keep tempo with the band (a similar set up sent a FOH view back to the conductor via a small screen).  This “mostly” off site live audio accompaniment ended up a success as the mix was well balanced in the final production.

To view some of the production photos for “Avenue Q”, please click here.