Avenue Q in Las Vegas
With cryptic promotion like this fuzzy Q advertisement, Avenue Q didn’t have a chance. It wasn’t like Wynn didn’t support the Broadway show, it’s that the advertisement was so mysterious that the typical Las Vegas tourist didn’t have time to solve the puzzle. What went through my head was, “Hmm, that taxi is covered with orange fur. What IS Avenue Q? Must be some strip show.” It IS Vegas, afterall. Most of the shows there ARE burlesque. How was I supposed to know that it was an acclaimed Broadway show with… um… raunchy puppets?
The Avenue Q show at the Wynn hotel is closing to make way for Spamalot, another musical hit from the Monty Python guys. There are so many musicals that came from Broadway in Las Vegas that it bothers me a little bit. Las Vegas isn’t the western Broadway. Las Vegas is its own animal with the ability to create its own live entertainment. They don’t need to borrow from New York. What works in New York, might not work in Vegas, as so aptly demonstrated by Avenue Q.
I wish the casino owners of Las Vegas would stop trying to be a cheap imitation of New York and let the city be a great version of itself. Las Vegas has what New York and Broadway could never have. Ironically, if Avenue Q had been a strange and fuzzy strip show, it probably wouldn’t be replaced with Spamalot right now.