Master of puppets

Those of us who grew up in the 1970s or later came of age with the help of children's television, perky programs that helped us learn to read and count. Isn't it shame those shows didn't grow up with us, continuing to teach us valuable life lessons about getting a job, negotiating relationships, and how to find porn online? Enter Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez, the creators of the Broadway smash hit and 2003 Tony winner Avenue Q, the cheerfully naughty musical about twentysomethings making their way in New York City. If the cartoonish sets and singing puppets remind you of another fictional New York street, think again: with songs about racism and sex and pornography, and a dash of "full-on puppet nudity," this isn't something you'd see on PBS. Since the boy's little-show-that-could arriving in Boston next week, Bay Windows spoke with Jeff Marx, the gay half of Avenue Q's creative partnership, about the show's success, its universal appeal, and why you shouldn't trust Wikipedia.

Q: Are you tired yet of talking about Avenue Q?
A: I never get tired of talking to anybody who's interested in it.

Q: Did you ever think the show would have this kind of longevity?
A: It's surprising and amazing. We're in our 5th year on Broadway now. Who would have ever thought that this thing we created for ourselves and our friends, that was about us and our friends, would last so long? And that so many people would respond to it, all over the world. There have been productions in Finland, Sweden, Israel, Argentina, The Phillipines...

Q: Isn't that interesting, that it translates to all those places.
A: I saw it in Sweden and Finland, and in each place there's a local director and actors who make it their own. It's wild. They have to translate it, and God knows what happens in translation. We don't monitor it closely. We figure local artists would know better than us what will work in their locales.

Q: You had an unusual journey yourself to get to this point. You were a lawyer, and you wanted to become a producer, right?
A: I started as an actor, in college. I wanted to be a musical theater actor. But it seemed like it would be a very frustrating life and my parents encouraged me to go to law school. So I thought OK, I will be an entertainment lawyer instead, and produce musicals instead of acting in them. While looking for clients, I joined the BMI Workshop. I thought it was the perfect place to meet young talented writers to become my clients! And I discovered I was good at writing songs, and I started writing with Bobby Lopez, and we wrote a show, and the fucking thing went to Broadway. That's pretty much it. We wanted to pitch it for TV, but that was a pipe dream. We never imagined it would really take off.

Q: I understand your partnership with Bobby Lopez is kind of unusual in that you don't break down the roles of composer and lyricist.
A: He writes music and lyrics, and I write music and lyrics. We take turns at the piano and we both have a pencil. We found the work was better when we did every bit of it together. It's definitely slower, but we also had a deal that we never keep anything that only one of us likes. So the work turns out better than if we had done it individually.

Q: How does that work now that you live in L.A?
A: We're figuring out how to do things by email. Right now we're trying to do the Avenue Q movie, and we're working on a movie for New Line. It's called Untitled. It's a parody, but we're not supposed to talk about it.

Q: Can you tell me how far along it is?
A: It's a musical, and we've got about six songs done. We're hoping to shoot it before the actor's strike in June.

Q: And what about the Avenue Q movie?
A: We have a fist draft of the screenplay, and we're about to shop it around in Hollywood.

Q: I know you originally thought of it as a TV show, but is it hard adapting it into a movie?
A: Putting it into cinematic terms is a challenge. We're very used to it the way it's been. We spent 5 years developing it and we're happy with it, so it's hard to re-imagine it for a new medium. And none of us have worked on movies before. But of course, we had never worked on a Broadway show before.

Q: Maybe you can get Gary Coleman for real.
A: We're thinking of that! That'd be fun. But we're not even close to that stage yet.

Q: When you were working on Avenue Q, you were also being filmed for the documentary Show Business. Did that add to the stress?
A: Not really, because the filmmaker was such a wonderful, motherly presence. She never made us feel like this was going to be embarrassing. Every time she showed up with the cameras it felt like a friend who was going on the journey with us. And luckily things turned out great, and we have this really well done home movie of the best year of our life! Really, we couldn't have a better memento, and we get to share it with all these strangers.

Q: It really is a great movie.
A: We were real happy with it. Of course we were real happy with how the Tonys turned out!

Q: What were you thinking that night? Did you think you had a shot at winning?
A: Everybody was predicting Wicked was going to win, and we were too. It was a big shock. First they gave the award for Best Book, and that went to Jeff Whitty, so that was exciting. And then it was Best Score for me and Bobby, and that was like... what? Did we just win Best Score? And then they gave us Best Musical. We couldn't believe it. It was amazing. I had bought the expensive seats for my family. They give you two seats when you're nominated, and if you want additional seats it's like $800. That was a good investment.

Q: And will you guys ever go back to Broadway?
A: We're both working on things with other collaborators. Bobby's working on something with his wife. We've never worked together exclusively. And one project is sensitive because we don't have the rights yet to the underlying material.

Q: Speaking of sensitive, I noticed that phrases like "not to be confused with Sesame Street" are in all the P.R. materials.
A: It's easy to confuse them, isn't it?

Q: Oh, yeah. I'm sure I saw Lucy the Slut on Sesame Street.
A: We knew the Jim Henson Company would have something to say about it. So we invited them to the very first reading. They loved the material. They thought it was a wonderful homage to Jim Henson and they got a huge kick out of it. They were afraid the puppets were a little too close to the Muppets, so we did a little bit of redesign. And they asked us to make it clear that this wasn't for kids and wasn't Elmo.

Q: No one wants angry parents asking for their money back.
A: No, the show is inappropriate for kids. We don't want to mislead anybody.

Q: I have to ask - even though I don't remember now where I got this - but I heard you have a reputation for heckling shows?
A: Yeah, I read that too! On Wikipedia. I don't know where that came from, but I kind of like it.

Q: I'm kind of disappointed it's not true!
A: I guess I might whisper in a friend's ear, but do I yell, "You suck!" at the actors? No. And I don't remember ever belching or farting during a show I don't like. But I do like the image. Sometimes the legend is more interesting than the truth.

Avenue Q plays The Colonial Theatre March 11 - 23. Tickets $27.50 - $87.50. More info: 617.931.2787 or www.broadwayacrossamerica.com.