Avenue Q Walk-Out Experiences

Okay.. so I finally saw Avenue Q tonight as the very talented touring cast made a stop here in Buffalo. I knew very little about the show going in and thought the cast did a superb job. Lots of very funny moments. Clever, smart comedy. And while I knew this show had its provacative moments, even I was still a bit taken back by the 'puppet sex' scene. I was not offended at all.. just... surprised at first. Overall... a great show. I can't say that I would see it again.. and not one of the songs is still 'playing' in my head. But.. I can definitely see why it's such a popular show and why it is still going relatively strong on Broadway.

With that all said.. I'm wondering if others have witnessed any 'dramatic' exits during the show from audience members. I saw one couple sitting near me get up and leave about halfway through Act One. Otherwise, the audience was pretty receptive. I'm just curious if anyone else has witnessed some dramatic or disgusted exits from audience members who didn't realize what they were in for.

Updated On: 5/4/08 at 01:37 AM

Bert and Ernie stormed out of the theater during "If you were gay." They sued for defamation of character, but they had their hands in each other's pants during the whole trial, which really hurt their case.

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Nope.

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One would figure one would go in knowning at least it wasn't a PG-13 rated show in some parts.

Of course never under estimate the ignorance of middle America...

Things are a bit different for tours. While those people probably left because of the nature of the show, they could of also left quite simply because they didn't like it.

Subscribers leave or don't show up all the time. That's one thing I would do if I owned a theatre: have a policy that if a subscriber doesn't show up within 5 minutes of showtime, their seats can be re-sold to students. Everybody wins.

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This isn't a walk out story, but: I took my HS kids to see this a few years ago. We knew it was "edgy" but had gotten word that it was totally appropriate.

I'll state this up front: I loved it...and I'll never bring HS kids to see it again. Not that its INappropriate for them to see it...but that its inappropriate for them to see it as part of a SCHOOL trip.

However, I can only imagine how much more I would have loved it if at every sexual, racist or questionable moment I didn't have 100 HS kids craning thier necks to see how I was reacting!

At intermission, my colleague and I walked toward each other and said: So...what's YOUR next career going to be. Then I remembered: MY name didn't appear on any of the paper work.

To our amazement we did not get one complaint from a single family. Whew!

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When I saw the RENT tour like 10 years ago there was an elderly couple who walked out of the theater after the first couple songs. I think when people walk out, they just don't know what they are going to go see, and could be offended by it.

The most recent walkout I experienced was Glory Days when like 5 people walked out within the first 15 minutes of the show.

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That's exactly why I never understood the concept of subscribing which is so widespread in regional theatre, other than the fact that theses companys have a guaranteed $ base to work with.

Spring Awakening is a lot more disgusting and a lot less entertaining than Avenue Q.

I actually just posted this story on another thread today, but on Saturday, a family of 6 (all lotto winners) walked out of Bway's "Q"...during the sex scene. They were not an old family, a mom of about 40 and her daughters/daughter's friends b/w 16 and 21 I'd guess, and they were black. They left as quietly and descreately as possible, so that was good...but it was odd having 6 empty seats in the front row for the rest of the show.:/

When RENT did its first tour in Richmond years ago, it lost about half its audience during the intermission.

Course the fact that the sound system was so bad you couldn't understand most of it probably had a lot to do with it.

I'm seeing it next month in Seattle and I'm suspecting a few people will walk out and even bring their little kids. Our touring house always has a large chunk of patrons who buy season tickets for status. They often have no idea what they're seeing.
I'm predicting more than a few walk outs here.

Funny you start this thread.

Yesterday (Sun 5/4) afternoon waiting outside the Royale/Jacobs for my friends to show up to see Country Girl at 3:00, three women walked out of the Golden Theatre where the Q matinee had begun 45 minutes earlier. They threw their programs in the trash can and muttered something like, "Well that's that."

I tried to get close enough to hear their conversation since they were discussing why they all hated Avenue Q, but I couldn't overhear. The most interesting thing was the age range: a mother and two late teen daughters. The daughters being the spot-on target demo for the show and the mother (I guess she was their mother) was about 40-45 at most.

"To each his own" said the lady as she kissed the cow's rear end (except the line uses another word for rear end).

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