Hackensack High School Welcomes Rick Lyon for AN AVENUE Q & A Tonight

Hackensack High School will be hosting Broadway actor Rick Lyon for An Avenue Q & A tonight, March 13 at 7:00pm in the school auditorium.

Lyon, a resident of Bloomfield, designed the puppets and appeared in the original Broadway production of Avenue Q, which beat out Wicked to win the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2004. In a discussion moderated by theater critic and author Peter Filichia, who writes a regular column for Music Theatre International, Lyon will share some of his favorite stories from his impressive career, which includes working on Sesame Street and for the Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and The Jim Henson Company.

In addition to puppeteering professionally, he also coaches actors on how to use his uniquely designed puppets for productions of Avenue Q at regional and educational theaters across the nation. Lyon is currently working with the students of Hackensack High School on their upcoming production of Avenue Q: School Edition, which will be staged March 26-28.

Avenue Q, which includes witty and irreverent songs such as "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist," "It Sucks to Be Me," and "If You Were Gay," tells the story of Princeton, a recent college graduate, in search for his purpose. The musical was originally conceived by Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez - who would later go on to co-write the music for Disney's Frozen - for television as an adult version of Sesame Street, meant to straddle the line between homage and parody, but ultimately found its home on stage. Like the children's show it is based on, the musical includes both puppet and human characters.

"Before we selected the show for this year, the production staff and I thought it was important that we worked with the best person available to help our students communicate through the puppets, if we were going to choose the school edition of Avenue Q," Hackensack High School teacher Caseen Gaines says. "We managed to not only get the best person available, but the best person, period. Who could be better than the person who designed the puppets and performed in the show eight times a week for several years?"

For students at the school, working with Lyon has been an educational experience. "When most people think about what it means to be in a school play, they tend to think it's easy to put up a show," Alexandria Kowal, a Hackensack High School senior, who plays Kate Monster, says. "But it's been a lot of work. It's been a fun challenge, but working with Mr. Lyon has made our performances so much better."

General admission tickets for An Avenue Q & A are $10.00 and proceeds go to benefit the Hackensack High School Performing Arts Scholarship Fund. Reserved seating tickets for the school's spring musical are $15.00. Parents should be advised that Avenue Q: School Edition may not be appropriate for children under the age of thirteen.

Tickets for both can be purchased by calling the Hackensack High School Main Office a 201-646-7902 or online at http://hackensacks.seatyourself.biz.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride

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