Avenue Boo Hoo

Well, it sucks to be Chicago. Late yesterday afternoon the producers of Avenue Q announced their 30 city tour schedule, and after recent successive snubs by Chita Rivera and Sweeney Todd, Chicago was once again not on the list. Are they afraid the company of Wicked is going to storm the theatre and kick their puppet asses? What do they think the audiences in North and South Carolina, Atlanta, and Fort Worth are going to do when they get to the third-to-last line in the show? Despite high profile tour premiers of Hairspray, Wicked, and (even though I hate it) The Color Purple, Chicago is losing its status as the desired first tour city, a trend started in 1994 when Disney, partly due to an arrangement with their Toronto producing partners, stuck Chicago as the dead last stop of the Beauty and the Beast first tour, bringing it here in 1997, almost 4 years after it first bowed on Broadway. They tried to make up for that by doing Aida's pre-Broadway run here but then they didn't bring the Lion King here until 2003, 5 years after its Broadway premiere and after it had already stopped in several other cities. Now, we're missing out on several recent hits, and being treated like bastard stepchildren by Light in the Piazza and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, both of which are squeezing us in at the very end of their tours after initially leaving us off the schedule, like they're doing us the biggest favor by just showing up. Granted, we got a pre-Broadway engagement of Piazza, but that was a very different incarnation that didn't stay very long. Where's the love? I'm starting to worry that we're not going to get a visit from The Drowsey Chaperone. I'm really glad I caught several of the new shows when I was in NY in March. God only knows when or if they'll even make it here.