We took some time to sit down with two of the leads from Auburn Players upcoming production of Avenue Q. Joe Wood plays Princeton, a newly minted college grad who is looking for his first experiences in the real world. He finds himself in Avenue Q, partly because he can’t afford to go anywhere else. Michele Lindor plays Kate Monster, a kindergarten teaching assistant with larger aspirations in life.
AuburnPlayers.org: What’s the most important thing about Avenue Q? What do you tell your friends when they ask you what it’s about?
Lindor: The most common answer is it is Sesame Street for adults, because of the puppets, but it’s really not just about the puppets. It’s not what you would expect. The show really does have a meaning to it. It has a lot of heart.
Wood: Personally, I just really love the message of the last song, “For Now.” We need to take things for what they are and accept the world around us. In the Princeton gets so caught up finding his purpose in life he misses the important parts of the show happening around him, his friends, Kate. The show says “Don’t stress, relax, let life roll of your backs.” Princeton really has to learn to let the important moments in life find him and celebrate that moment. It’s an important lesson for all of us.
Lindor: Kate is a great moral lesson, a hopeless romantic and a dreamer.
AuburnPlayers.org: How has it been working with the puppets, how has that been an added challenge?
Wood: It has been really cool. It’s been a fun experience. I’ve loved this show for forever and wanted to work with puppets has been a dream of mine, so it’s so fun to make that come alive. My goal from the beginning has been to develop a vocabulary of movements that Princeton can do to express himself. I worked a very long time with the puppet and matching both focus and intention with Princeton. It took some time, but I don’t feel separate from him.
Michele: The way I portrayed Kate changed when I got my hands on the puppet. She’s girlier, a little sassy. I make her a little more feminine because that’s the character. (Laughing) It’s funny because I talk about the puppet having a personality, but she does, she has a way about her.
AuburnPlayers.org: What has helped you the most as you try to work with your character.
Wood: To begin, one of the most important things is the author’s note that is in our script. The author said, root these characters in reality, just because they are puppets doesn’t mean they are all caricatures, the audience will connect to their realness. We had the opportunity to work with Scott Hitz,
a master puppeteer from PhotoSynthesis Productions. Scott worked with the original pre-broadway production of Avenue Q, and just talking about the choices they made. His guidance about focus and intention were really transformative.
Lindor: Working with the Players has been so much fun and it has been a great rehearsal process. It’s so nice that a community group would let a newcomer and outsider come in, be made feel so welcome, and trusted to have an important role in this production.
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